F-22 Raptor missing in Alaska - search underway . . .
 

F-22 aircraft overdue in reporting

An Air Force F-22 assigned to the 3rd Wing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, lost contact with air traffic control at 7:40 p.m. Alaska time today while on a routine training mission.

Search under way.

Hope the pilot is found safe and well soon .

Hope the pilot is safe. Alaska is very unforgiving in November

Was there not a Russian chap in the 70s who flew a Mig-25 into NATO/US hands? Just imagine the reverse has happened here? Alaska is quite close to Russia after all...Imagine our dear friends in Russia or China getting a 'defecting' F-22? - Air Dominance would be challenged in a matter of 5 years....I do hope the pilot is OK tho.

Shut up Grim. 99.9% chance is the guy is either injured or worse. Please keep your far-fetched derogatory comments to yourself. Here's hoping the guy is found safe. Jets can be replaced, even if they do cost 1/2billion $.

Grim - ar$ehole.

Good luck to the driver - it's bl**dy chilly out in rural AK at this time of year.

S41

We won't be able to replace any in another year when the economy really blows up. We're broke!

F-22 production line is closed and no further aircraft will be produced. The F-22 program was canceled in July 2009, with production standing at 187 aircraft.

Unit cost was variously reported at between $150million to $361million - just a little short of the $1-2billion alluded to above... :eek:

Seems likely this is a sad loss - at time of writing no sign of aircraft or pilot and suggestions from the Pentagon that the aircraft was lost in the Alaskan wilderness.

- GY

:cool::cool:

Air Force Magazine: It’s Okay to Talk Raptor Again

Nov. 16, 2010—The Air Force has apparently gotten over one of its biggest taboos: talking internally about the possibility of buying more F-22s.

Until recently, USAF was under strict orders not even to think about it, but recent developments have caused the possibility to crop up in some "what if" PowerPoint slides.

Those developments include likely further slips in the F-35 strike fighter's schedule and an upcoming defense acquisition board review of the F-35 expected to be fraught with bad news on cost.

That would come on the heels of various deficit-cutting proposals that already suggest cutting the F-35 buy. Without F-35, Air Force fighter inventories will plummet below minimums in coming years as F-16s age out.

Extending F-22 production could be the dealmaker if F-35 foes carry the day and compel USAF to take mostly new-build F-16s instead. The Raptors would provide the extra stealth force required to make the non-stealthy F-16s acceptable.

Also, if you’ve listened carefully, USAF has gone from saying it will retain a "portion" of F-22 production tooling to "most" and, most recently, to "all."

Gen. William Fraser, head of Air Combat Command, acknowledged last week that Lockheed Martin is filming all F-22 tooling processes as the earliest parts of production shut down, so that it can go back to production of parts—ostensibly for repairs or service life extension—in the future.

Also last week, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) said he might spearhead an effort to get more F-22s into the budget. But he acknowledged it could be a difficult task given pressures to rein in spending. Gingrey complained bitterly that the Pentagon prematurely terminated F-22 production, centered in Marietta in his Congressional district, before Russia rolled out its own F-22 clone, the PAK FA, last year.

Searchers find wreck believed to be F-22: Military | adn.com
Not looking good for the pilot. I hope I am wrong though.

They still teach fractions at my son's school.

Nothing of the sort was alluded to. Read again and come back with what was written.

A, if still over the top, little more 'reasonable' 1/2, i.e. 0.5, $Bn.

Take your petty-@ss bickering somewhere else!

There is no tale of human tragedy that will not be made more tragic by some half witted, amoral, self interested, scum sucking f***ing politician getting in to big themselves up.

Well said GreenKnight121.

Let us all cross our fingers and keep in mind, and hope, another of our brothers in arms who faces peril.

I can only agree with the two posts above.

This is a thread about an aircraft down in a very harsh environment, and some posters seems to think that this is the time to talk of production lines and monetary value!

I have my fingers crossed here, and will await further news on the pilot.

Squirrel,

Bore off - get off your moral high horse and open your mind to possibilities.

Well, they've found the wreckage but not the pilot. And oh look, it's not in Russia or China.

Search for pilot continues after Alaska jet crash

Good luck to the guy.

Grim: I don't often resort to calling people out on here for being tossers, but you, with no evidence, suggested that someone who may well be dead, had committed high treason with one of the USAF's most prized assets. I suppose you work with F-22s on a daily basis and therefore know that the crews would take your banter in stride? :ugh: Or, perhaps not. Tosser. :*

S41

You two girls need to stop sharing a room so you can get your cycles de-synchronised!

F-22 pilot missing since Tuesday night plane crash in Alaska identified as Capt. Jeffrey Haney, formerly of Jackson County

The missing pilot of an Air Force F-22 fighter jet that crashed this week in a remote area of interior Alaska is Air Force Capt. Jeffrey A. Haney, whose mother lives in Jackson County, the man Haney calls his stepdad confirmed today.

Mike Viane, who has lived with Haney's mother for more than 20 years, said Haney's mother, Linda, and father are now on a plane to Alaska, where they will join Haney's wife, Anna, and the couple's two young daughters.

The two left this morning and are to arrive before midnight tonight, he said from he and Linda Haney's home on Gillette Road west of Brooklyn.

Haney, 31, has been in the Air Force for about five years, Viane said. He graduated from Columbia Central High School in 1997 and went to flight school at Western Michigan University.......

..God I hope he is alright in that Cold alaskan night....I remember Eilson in February and the night was nothing short of bitter......hang in there mate..

Looks like "no joy".

Air Force: Evidence points to F-22 pilot's death - KansasCity.com

Sad news indeed.
What a shame that while this man was paying the ultimate price, armchair pundits were speculating about defection. I have never been aircrew, but am aghast at some of the posts in this thread.

R.I.P.

Looks like the USAF have given up any hope of finding the pilot alive:

Pilot confirmed killed in Alaska fighter jet crash | Reuters

I know it sounds awful, but if the pilot didn't eject and passed away either prior or subsequent to crashing, what are the chances of animals getting to the body? Are there wolves in that part of the world? Seems very strange that there is no body but fragments of flight suit.

The aircraft clearly went in steep and fast. There'd be no recognisable parts of the pilot left. No wolves. Sad.

Let's hope the pilot's death was quick and clean.

Let's not dwell on this. If you must, use your imagination. RIP.

This thread really is taking the biscuit for insensitive comment.

1) No, the pilot didn't defect.
2) If it left a crater and the pilot was still in it at impact then no, it isn't all that odd not to find very much.

The pilot died, once upon a time that would not be occasion for speculation on the gory details, FFS.

Dave

Ahhh... But this is the "Internet World"... Those who have only ever lived in it expect video and soundbites... hopefully streamed directly to their iPhones as they shuffle their burgers at MacDonalds or Wendy's or collect their benefits because they are too lazy to work let alone serve...

Ignore them...

Sad news.. RIP.

Do the Raptors have a black box to find the cause of the accident?.

Regards

Airborne Aircrew
 

It is posts like yours that make me still come back to PPRuNe

Thank you.

JF

Raptor do have FDRs. Dont know what sort of condition it will be in. They will really want the info off it though.

************** No sh*t ***************

AA & Tashengurt...thanks.

RIP.

What Happened ?
 

Yes, the forum posts here generally go thru a very predictable sequence for any aircraft crash topic.

The first post or two is informative about initial, sketchy reports of a downed aircraft. That's quickly followed by a series of mawkish comments about the fate & stature of the pilot/aircrew... and perhaps some oddball speculation on the event. Further facts dribble in about the crash itself. If it's a hi-profile crash or there's enough forum interest... the thread eventually gets into serious objective discussion of the crash & causes. There are always one or two comments about how blasphemous it is to even discuss possible causes of the mishap ... prior to the sacred final report of the official mishap investigation board.

Aircraft have been crashing for over a century in huge numbers... and there's much knowledge as to why they do so. Experienced military aviators here certainly have deep insight on general causes of mishaps... that can be reasonably applied to specific aircraft events. After all -- this is a discussion forum of military aviation.

As to this specific F-22 crash, we know the pilot/aircraft impacted terrain at high speed. Non-ejection indicates the pilot was somehow incapacitated, late in the ejection decision, or perhaps had some ejection-system malfunction.
Primary mishap cause falls into known areas: maintenance, aircraft design, human factors, weather, etc.

More facts on this crash will trickle in; however, the location & condition of the aircraft will significantly slow the fact-finding. USAF mishap investigations & final reports are usually much faster than other aviation organizations.

Any comments on likely causes of this mishap ?

RIP to our comrade in arms Captain Haney. :(:

In re the question on mishap causes.

The USAF most commonly sends aircraft out in flights of two.

My first question would be: Was it a two ship, and if so, what news from the wingman or flight lead?

If not, what manner of flight profile/training profile, would most likely be undertaken solo? I imagine there are a whole basket of training missions designed for a single ship night sortie. Been a while since I saw a T & R matrix. Can any USAF fighter jocks provide insight?

As noted previously, I was part of a SAR effort off of Eastern Turkey when a single ship USAF F-16 went into the bay near Iskenderun. Based on the radar info available for our SAR planning, mishap aircraft had a high Rate of Descent before being lost to radar. It took some weeks for them to find the aircraft, underwater. In very gross terms, this event sounds eerily similar.

Three thoughts come to mind for root causes for lost F-22:

•  
  • Disorientation
  • Flight control/computer failure (that would have to be a multiple failure, given system redundancy in F-22 and other FBW jets)
  • Midair -- though with what I've no idea.

That initial evidence pointing to no ejection is troubling: was pilot incapacitated? I suspect that last point will remain unknown.

And the terrain and weather.

Was it controlled flight into the ground such as high ground or rising in level flight or level terrain in diving flight in poor visibility or low feature contrast?

Taking the crash position from the earlier post the ground does not appear to be particularly high but certainly non-descript with trees and the Chulitna River. NW of the river though there is low mountainous terrain and snow.

NVG?

Pontius:

From what little I know of F-22, its design and mission, I find it unlikely that low level nav is a mission (and hence training) focus for that aircraft. That leads me to guess that "low level nav route gone wrong" (how many times has that happened? Many ...) isn't an avenue of inquiry likely to bear much fruit. Also understand from the articles cited that the impact seems to have been more vertical like.

Am happy to be corrected, or to be shown where my understanding is off.

NVG training gone wrong? Could be.

Lonewolf

I remember back into the 70's when an aircraft was lost off the deck on a carrier and it was carrying an early version of a new misssile "Phoenix".

I think the whole area was saturated for weeks to try and find it because the implications of the commies finding it were scary.

Yep, that was a Tomcat off of the Kennedy. (Off West Coast of England or Ireland, can't recall which).

IIRC, a small nuclear research sub (NR 1?) was what eventually found/recovered that Tomcat. Phoenix was a big deal in those days, for sure.

EDIT: well how about that, my memory was correct. Submarine Force Library & Museum: Submarine History, Gifts & Memorabilia

Lonewolf.
Just out interest, if I remember correctly, a tailfin from this aircraft was washed up on a beach in Ireland some years later. Can't remember whether east or west coast.