glojo

I guess those that put forward these accusations would suggest that pilots being presented with the same conditions can comfortably recover from the situation..

A situation the pilot is forewarned about and probably in a simulator.

What an awful, awful waste of a human life and then to publish a report that causes further distress to this man's loved ones is not the sort of loyalty I would expect from my 'employer' Reading that report really highlights the awful conditions that were thrown at that pilot.

I say waste of a human life just because of the issues with this aircraft. If a pilot makes mistakes then they must accept the consequences. if a manufacturer\designer has made mistakes then surely they also have a duty to accept they made mistakes. I am not someone that believes in litigation but by crikey.

I hope the next of kin of that pilot sues the bee Jesus out of the manufacturer of that aircraft... Said in my best Mr Angry voice.

My respects to this man's Next of Kin

Ewan Whosearmy

Beagle

No, the F-22 does not have an HMS at this time.

NVGs are attached to the pilot's HGU-55 via a 'banana clip' that means the visor cannot be raised or lowered - as a consequence, the visor is almost always removed altogether.

OK465

I flew military for 25 years and was fully aware of what I voluntarily signed up for every time I strapped into a jet. I don't recall any guarantees, and wouldn't have changed a thing for the lack of them. Every fighter type I flew had, before I flew it, previously been responsible for pilot fatalities. My mindset was that I was 'lucky' to get to fly them anyway.

The manufacturer attempts to provide a machine with capabilities specified by the military service. To advance the state of the art, often compromises are required. I'm not sure that the term manufacturer 'mistake' is operative or relevant here. The manufacturer's achievement would seem to have been to provide the service with the most advanced and hottest jet around.

This event is, of course extremely sad, but there's a number of folks still flying these jets, accepting the inherent risks and doing the job. I would doubt that any of them have lawyer's on call as a result of this. And I would doubt that any of them would refuse to strap on this aircraft.

Different strokes, some people may feel litigation is appropriate.

I personally don't. Just one old guy's opinion.

glojo

Hi OK465,
I totally agree and FULLY endorse your sentiments and I can say that first hand.

I know you quoted my post and I stand by what I said but only because of the way this man is being portrayed.

I accept it is only being said that his actions were contributory to that incident, but the implication is far more character assassinating?

This is just one headline:

Pilot is to blame for F-22 crash in Alaska, Air Force says

Anchorage Daily News click here

Is that right or fair?

Is this what we expect and what about the victim's children when they go to school? There is nowt as spiteful as children and can we even begin to imagine what they are having to contend with? In my humble opinion this could have been avoided quite simply by blaming the defective equipment!

I guess I just feel angry that this type of headline has been allowed... it has been allowed because the USAF used words that they knew would do just that.

They must have known what they were doing when they wrote that report for public release.

They must have known how the media would react.

They must have known the media would 'slaughter' the good name of that pilot.

It smacks of an attempt to sacrifice the good name of a loyal pilot just to cover up an issue they are fully aware of!!!

Many apologies for my response but I would like to think that pilot deserved better...and boy I would like to have words with those that worded that report in the way they have.

No one but no one knows if the pilot suffered any physical symptoms as a result of that DEFECTIVE EQUPMENT

No one knows when or indeed IF this pilot FULLY recovered from any possible effects of that DEFECTIVE EQUIPMENT

I accept he tried to recover the aircraft but without being too graphic it very much sounds like his remains have sadly not been recovered which means we will never know just how fully compos mentis this man was solely because of the DEFECTIVE EQUIPMENT that was possibly the direct cause of the pilot needing to taking corrective action which may, or may not have caused him to become either semi-concious or even possibly black out.

did he suffer from deprivation of oxygen? My answer would be 'Yes' but who can say by what degree?

The part of my quote you accidentally left out was:

I agree entirely with your sentiments but when someone stabs you in the back in the style they have deliberately encouraged then I just feel those responsible need a 'slap'

Apologies one and all for the emotive post but wrong is wrong and I feel better for saying it

lightningmate

It is not the aircraft manufacturer that 'approves' the aircraft to be operated in the military flying environment - it is the Military Authority.

All too often, because of cost and/or delay or simple inability to understand an issue identified by others, the said Military Authority accepts obvious deficiencies in systems etc and clears a platform into Service.

Once this action has been taken, the aircraft manufacturer is of the hook and any subsequent remedy that is deemed essential must be paid for by the tax payer. That places the whole problem back into the 'cost loop' again with all the attendant affordability issues; plus the cost to fix will now have risen considerably!

lm

jamesdevice

am I correct in thinking that the onboard oxygen generation equipment comes from Honeywell - i.e. a British Normalair-Garrett (as was) product?

BEagle

Has this obvious defect been properly reported? Or is this information merely from crewroom grumbling...

Bevo

The F-22 OBOGS unit is supplied by Honeywell as is the unit on the F-35.

jamesdevice

"The F-22 OBOGS unit is supplied by Honeywell as is the unit on the F-35."
So admitting there may be a problem with the OBOGS of the F-22 could lead to political issues over the workshare on the F-35?

Easy Street

james,

Unless I am mis-reading this text, the serviceability of the OBOGS itself was not a factor in this accident. Rather it was a failure of the aircraft's own bleed-air system which starved the OBOGS of the air input it needed to function. So this particular accident looks unlikely to be laid at Honeywell's door.

NigelOnDraft

JF: I am not sure the report does say this is "Pilot Error"? I might be misunderstanding your point (?) of course

Ditto the oft quoted ... yet the report does not blame the pilot. It finds factors, but nowhere do I see "negligence", "poor judgement", even "error". It does state the pilot "failure to recognize and initiate..." - but that is not the same as blame. He clearly did "fail to...", but nowhere does it say he ought to have "recognized" etc. in the circumstances i.e. the root cause of his failure might be other factors e.g. training / equipment.

NoD

Bevo

Not sure. The F-35 has a different model although they obviously are related. I believe that the F-35 system was evaluated during the original F-22 grounding and found not to have problems.

jamesdevice

The problem is when some pork-barreling congressman realises that theres a foreign supplier he can take a pot shot at and tries to mandate a bill insisting on USA manufactured kit

mini

Just dipping in here.

This guy was at 55 thousand feet. What has night vision got to offer ?

If he was at anything other than ground hogging why NVG?

Easy Street

1) NVG help you stay oriented whilst looking out of the window as you can see the ground surface quite clearly even from high altitude (providing there is decent moonlight or cultural lighting). This avoids the problem of perceiving false horizons due to confusion between stars and points of light on the surface.

2) NVG immediately highlight any aircraft displaying lights or using reheat. A view of the night skies over the UK using NVG will reveal many, many more aircraft than you could possibly see by day even in the clearest weather. Indeed it can become very confusing as you get very little idea of range. However if you have a radar or GCI service to help correlate the picture then you can get very long-range tallies (50nm+) using NVG.

Additional uses of NVG at high altitude, not relevant in this case, are close formation flying at night and joining AAR. Boom AAR such as practised by the USAF is often completed wearing NVG (most probe-and-drogue receivers will remove NVG once behind the tanker due to the lack of depth perception).

BEagle

Indeed. Back in May 1982, we were tasked to fly a single F-4 as a target for a Harrier testing early NVGs very late one night.

The Harrier mate saw us from miles away when we were just cruising along showing normal lights. Then he read out our registration letters whilst still in loose formation. He was most chuffed with the way the NVGs were working. Then he asked me to pop one into burner....

"Ah - wish I hadn't asked that! The whole world's just gone bright green!"

John Farley

Since oinly the MP is criticised in this conclusion I believe that is just a PC way of saying Pilot Error. The above is a picture from the actual report. They could have used a proof reader.

LowObservable

Not so much a proofreader as a new copy of Adobe Acrobat. It's about as easy to read as the EOS is easy to activate.

NigelOnDraft

Hi John...

It could be read that way.

However, if you come at it from a different viewpoint, firstly it was the direct "cause" of the accident - after all, if he had "recognized" etc. the accident would not have occurred. That viewpoint applied would also lead me to say the quote you give is not "criticism" - just an observation. Furthermore, the subsequent "factors" given in the report make it fairly clear that it was perfectly understandable, if not likely, that the pilot would "fail to recognize" / "make timely"... and that the priority needs to be given to correcting those "factors" in order to remove the likliehood of the "cause" being repeated i.e. you can improve training / equipment, you cannot easily improve scan rates / prioritisation of an already clearly capable and experienced pilot.

Quite what "cause" "fault" "blame" can be inferred depends on what the terms of Ref are for USAF Accident Investigations - I believe AF 51-503 which I cannot find after a quick search.

NoD

Brian Abraham

Hypoxic hypoxia is an insidious event. Here is one such, a lone pilot who had an aircraft fail to pressurise, and by luck more then anything, survived.

http://atsb.gov.au/media/2499615/ao2009044.pdf