Has the F-22 oxygen problem been solved?

(CBS News) The F-22 Raptor is America's most advanced fighter plane. It ought to be: Each one costs $143 million.

However, for months something mysterious has been happening to F-22 pilots in flight, putting them in jeopardy.

The F-22 is on a very short leash. After first being grounded, the world's most sophisticated and expensive jet fighter is flying again, but limited to flights within 30 minutes of a landing field.

The reason: A mysterious problem that without warning has caused pilots to suffer hypoxia - become disoriented from lack of oxygen. Over the past 10 months, says Col. Kevin Robbins, commander of the First Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, there have been 11 incidents of hypoxia.

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"No one has gotten to the point where they're completely, where they're delirious. They're still able to function, still able to bring the aircraft back safely," Col. Robbins says.

CBS News correspondent David Martin experienced hypoxia first hand in an F-22 simulator as Maj. Tom Massa reduced the flow of oxygen to his mask. It is like being dizzy.

When it got too bad, Martin pulled the emergency oxygen, and only then did he realize how far downhill his ability to function had gone. When he thought his simulated flight was going straight and level, he was actually continuing to climb.

The real F-22 can pull 9 Gs, subjecting the pilot to a force nine times the weight of gravity.

One standard piece of equipment is an inflatable vest. It provides chest counter-pressure during rapid decompression.

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Technical Sgt. Scott Bender helped Martin into a vest and hooked him up to an oxygen machine with the instructions: "Don't panic." The vest inflated to protect Martin's lungs from exploding at high altitude, but it also made it harder to breathe.

Centrifuge tests revealed that the vest - which was supposed to improve the pilot's chances of survival - was actually a hazard.

"The vest was inflating every time you pull G's in the aircraft and then staying inflated which was making it more difficult to take air," Col. Robbins says.

After months of dissecting every inch of the plane's complex oxygen system, Maj. Gen. Charles Lyon, the man in charge of the investigation, believes he has solved the mystery of the F-22: It's the vest.

F-22 pilots no longer wear the vest, but as a result are not allowed to fly above 44,000 feet. Even without the vest, there have been two cases of pilots running short of oxygen, although General Lyon says those were mechanical malfunctions unrelated to the hypoxia mystery. Until General Lyon can convince Defense Secretary Panetta he really has solved the mystery, the F-22 will remain on a short leash.

Below, watch the original "60 Minutes" report on the F-22's oxygen deprivation issues

[dcooper1010]

Complete BS! "No one has gotten to the point where they're completely, where they're delirious. They're still able to function, still able to bring the aircraft back safely," Col. Robbins says. In November of 2010, Capt. Jeff Haney was killed while returning to base after routine training over the Alaskan wilderness when his oxygen generating system shut down flying at mach 1.1 @ over 40,000 feet. The Air Force Accident Investigation Board ruled that it was pilot error due to Capt. Haney's inability to fly the plane properly due to being "distracted" by the lack of oxygen. Yes, suffocating is quite the distraction. This contradicts Col. Robbins previous statement A)that nobody has become "delirious" or "unable to function" and B)everyone has been able to "bring the aircraft back safely". The F-22 has a history of oxygen problems. Since 2008 pilots have reported over 25 instances of hypoxia-like symptoms. The Air Force grounded all F-22 for much of 2011 after pilots started to speak out about problems w/the OBOGS(OnBoardOxygenGeneratingSystem) causing pilots to experience hypoxia-like symptoms,not any sort of issue with a pressurized vest, which is standard issue and used in many different jets in use currently. Those that spoke out were told to stop talking or be removed from duty. According to the A.F. accident report, "Capt. Haney accidentally pointed his F-22 toward the ground while reaching for a switch to activate his jet's backup oxygen system after the planes' OBOGS shut down." The report states, "while the oxygen generating system on Haney's jet didn't fail, it did shut down because oxygen from the bleed air system, which feeds the OBOGS, was leaking into the engine spaces, which can lead to fire. The bleed air system is designed to shut off automatically if it leaks air into the engine spaces; without the bleed air system OBOGS can't work. When this happened on Haney's jet, he reached down to activate his emergency oxygen supply (EOS) via a small ring tucked onto the side of his ejection seat; that's when he accidentally nudged the controls and pointed the jet toward the Earth and crashed @ Mach 1.1 31 seconds later." The report places blame on Haney for not activating his EOS fast enough to recover from the "accidental nudge" causing the dive, not on the problems with the bleed air system. It's incredible the part of the report that says his O2 system DIDN'T FAIL,BUT,IT DID SHUT DOWN because the bleed air system was leaking into the engine so it shuts down the b.a.s., without the b.a.s. the OBOGS doesn't work. I'd call that a system failure. Then he didn't activate his EOS fast enough! What? The first thing an elite pilot of our latest/greatest war-machine would do when the oxygen went out is get it back on. Breathing is a pretty high priority. One would think that it takes a split second for the EOS to activate. How does a pilot of one of the most expensive, rarest, highest performance fighter planes, described as "exceptional",who scored an "A" when tested on emergency systems and survival, not deploy the EOS and "accidently nudge" the controls into a 31 second-faster than the speed of sound-nosedive? He was either unconcious or so starving for air, caused by mechanical failure, that there was nothing he could do to pull out of a Mach 1.1 nosedive. Those G-forces would be to much for someone that was at half-wits let alone asleep. Shame on the Air Force for placing the blame on this man. Shame on the Defense Department for not stepping up and clearing his name. Capt. Haney did a job for this country that only a select few are capable of performing and you have the nerve to blame him for a well documented mechanical issue with your over-priced, under-engineered, flying deathtrap. Anything to save those BILLIONS! Lawsuits, budget cuts, future contracts with the Military Industrial Complex...screw it, blame the dead pilot! This is my theory of what isn't being discussed: If he didn't activate the EOS and the data recorder on the plane shows there was NO movement of the controls during the descent, Capt. Haney was already unconcious. If he was feeling dizzy he could've lowered altitude, used EOS or ejected. He didn't. The report says b.a.s. was leaking into the engine but I think it's the other way around. I think the pressures generated by the engine were backfeeding exhaust gas thru the b.a.s. into the OBOGS and the pilot blacked out causing the "accidental nudge" when he slumped over. I'm no aeronautical engineer but this has cover-up written all over it. On that note I'll leave you with a post from his family and friends on Capt. Haney's memorial facebook page that explains how blaming him for this is nonsense..."So by this logic, next the Army will say soldiers killed in action were in fact not killed but enemy gun fire but died from a lack of blood volume and intact organs and were at fault for not seeking medical attention in a timely manner."

[55minus5]

Oh well, cut the "entitlements", these airplanes are more important than Social Security and Medicare...

[chenz66]

Different part of the budget.

[FriarPuck55]

Yes they are. Without the armed forces, there would be no need for S/S or Medicare.

[heritagemi]

During this report last night, the Air Force representative who was interviewed indicated that there had been no fatalities atttributed to this problem. However, on November 16, 2010, Air Force Captain Jeff Haney of Michigan was killed in Alaska when his F-22 Raptor crashed. He did not eject, and hypoxia was suspected as the cause of the crash from the very beginning.

[Mathion]

"The F-22 Raptor is America's most advanced fighter plane. It ought to be: Each one costs $143 million."

Actually, the final cost of the planes is upwards of $334 million each. This includes the maintenance, special suits, replacement parts and the initial research and development costs. The $143 million is strictly the bare plane production costs.

In somewhat more realistic terms, that's enough money to get a bachelor's degree for more than eleven thousand Americans per plane. No human pilot can fly this plane at its performance envelope. The plane can take more than the pilot can. So why are we spending billions of dollars in addressing an issue in a system intended to keep alive the one thing in the aircraft which handicaps its performance? Why not build remote piloted drones that can exceed any human pilot's abilities and leave the pilots on the ground where there's an air delivery system we've evolved to use at our leisure?

[Lerianis6]

Good question at the end there. I don't buy the "A real pilot can beat a drone!" in the slightest. I don't know the number of times I personally got shot down by a 'drone' in various video games, without a real person controlling the drone.

[mikecragar]

Who needs 11,000 more unemployed kids with useless degrees in sociology, communications, poli sci, art history, ethnic studies, etc.? Starbucks is already packed with baristas with college degrees. There is nothing special about a college degree unless it is in science, math, engineering, agriculture, or business. We already have WAAAYYYYY too many kids going to college who have no business being there and are not improving their earning potential by spending 4, 5, or 7 years studying Black Trumpet in the '20s and Postmodernist Literature in the Philosophical Genre.

Not all college education leads to increased earnings, but they do lead to increased loan balances and taxpayer costs. We have far too many kids wasting time in college when they should be learning a useful skill and making a few bucks in an apprenticeship program to be a machinist or toll & die maker- which we have a huge shortage of that will get worse as the current machinists and tool & die makers retire.

Approve the Keystone XL pipeline and we'll need a lot of welders and metal workers too.

[tmittelstaed]

This is utter rubbish. The problem is very simple, that is that the entire air supply system isn't able to provide enough oxygen in demand situation and needs to be redesigned.

Honewell doesn't want to do this so they are trying to bandaid the fix but the Air Force already knows this is the real problem and Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and Representative Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, already leaked this 2 days ago.

[flyimac]

The vest keeps the pilots lungs from exploding??? Where do you get this stuff.....please do your research

[Lerianis6]

With all due respect, when it is a AIR FORCE OFFICIAL who says that... you can believe it.

[Zorg_P]

During an explosive decompression....

[rwsmith29456]

Don't blame the pilots. If there were sufficient need for planes to be in the air all of these guys would fly at the drop of a hat, problem or no problem.

[Bush-cheney-R-Terrorists]

I'm not an inflatable vest engineer, but how about inventing one that empties as fast as the g's are gone?