A recent report from the Pentagon’s inspector general is taking aim at findings on the fatal 2010 crash of an F-22 Raptor from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Talkeetna, which the Air Force blamed on the stealth fighter’s pilot.
Capt. Jeffrey Haney, assigned to the 525th Fighter Squadron, was flying an exercise on Nov. 16, 2010 with another Raptor when his plane fell off radar screens and crashed about 100 miles north of Anchorage. The Air Force’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Board found that Haney, who didn’t eject before the crash, had failed to activate an emergency oxygen system after a failure of the Raptor’s primary oxygen system.
In a summary of its Feb. 6 report the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General, or OIG, calls the three causes the board cited in the crash of Haney’s Raptor -- channelized attention, breakdown of visual scan and unrecognized spatial disorientation -- “separate, distinct and conflicting.”
“The AIB report does not clearly explain their interrelationship and how it is possible that all three factors concurrently caused the mishap,” the OIG wrote. “Failure to adequately explain this interrelationship calls into question the AIB Statement of Opinion regarding the cause of the mishap.”
Haney’s death was the worst in a series of incidents that has plagued the Raptor fleet, with more than a dozen reports of pilots experiencing hypoxia -- oxygen loss typically suffered by mountain climbers -- while flying the jet. The incidents led the Air Force to stand down its F-22s in 2011, imposing new restrictions keeping them closer to base even after they returned to service.
Numerous causes were considered for the F-22 oxygen issues, ranging from indoor engine-start procedures at JBER to faulty valves in the pilots’ flight vests. By the time the Air Force declared the problem solved in September 2012, it had signed a contract with Raptor maker Lockheed Martin to install a backup on-board oxygen generation system, or OBOGS, in all Raptors.
The OIG also questions the Air Force report’s failure to fully discuss the possible effects of hypoxia, gravity-induced loss of consciousness and sudden incapacitation on Haney. In addition, inspectors found that 60 of the 109 references in the report were incorrect or didn’t lead to the information they cited. Inspectors recommended that the Air Force’s Judge Advocate General re-evaluate the AIB report and “take appropriate action.”
The Air Force filed a response to the OIG, in which it conceded that the report on Haney’s crash “could have been more clearly written.” While the Air Force said it was taking steps to address some of the report’s issues, it refused to back down from its findings.
“(T)he Air Force found that the AIB President's Statement of Opinion regarding the cause of the mishap was supported by clear and convincing evidence and he exhausted all available investigative leads,” Air Force officials wrote.
In a rebuttal, the OIG noted that the Air Force didn’t describe any specific steps it was taking to correct issues with the crash report, asking it to do so by Feb. 28. Inspectors also claimed that the service didn’t meet its own standards of proof in establishing why Haney’s Raptor went down.
“With respect to clear and convincing evidence, (Air Force policy) states that the AIB President's opinion ‘must be supported by credible evidence that shows it is highly probable that the conclusion is correct,’” inspectors wrote. “Based on the deficiencies we identified in the AIB report, we conclude that the AIB report did not meet the requirements.”
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