Air Force confirms air supply problems for F-22 jets

The F-22 fighter jet / CBS News

(CBS News) Pilots flying the U.S. military's most advanced fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor, had been getting sick at the controls, and much of the focus toward finding the cause has been on the plane itself.

Now, however, Air Force investigators say the specialized flight suit pilots wear in the F-22 could be at least partially to blame for the oxygen deprivation experienced in flight.

On Thursday, the Air Force confirmed that reports of hypoxia are 10 times higher for F-22 pilots than in other USAF aircraft.

Officials tell CBS News correspondent David Martin that tests carried out in a flight-simulating centrifuge replicated hypoxia-like conditions for pilots wearing the suits. The link to the suits was first reported by CNN on Wednesday.

As "60 Minutes" reported in May (video), the Raptor - the most expensive fighter ever - has been plagued by a mysterious flaw that causes its pilots to become disoriented while at the controls from a lack of oxygen.

Pilots of the stealth fighter have complained that those oxygen-deficit problems have resulted in pilot dizziness, blackouts and other symptoms.

Martin reported that, according to the Air Force, there have been 22 unexplained cases over the past four years in which pilots experienced symptoms of oxygen deprivation.

On Thursday, two Congress members who have been involved in the issue released information shedding more light on the problem, including a rate of hypoxia much higher than previously reported by the Air Force. New information also was released from a study done by Boeing on the issue and an internal survey of pilots, the majority of them who did not feel confident in the F-22's breathing system:

In a May 10 letter, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) recommended that USAF tap the expertise of the U.S. Navy, NASA and others to help identify and correct these recurring F-22 issues.

Sen. Warner and Rep. Kinzinger also repeated their call Thursday for the USAF and the Virginia Air National Guard to rescind reprimands and other disciplinary proceedings initiated against Capt. Wilson and Maj. Gordon after they stepped forward under The Military Whistleblower Protection Act.

"I am troubled that two brave pilots had to risk their careers and two relatively new members of Congress had to apply pressure to force the Air Force to move off-the-dime on this," Sen. Warner said. "The safety of these pilots and the communities over which they fly should be everyone's paramount concern. The F-22 program has cost $80 billion so far, but the most expensive fighter jet in the world is useless if we can't ensure the safety of the pilots who fly it."

The F-22 was grounded last year while engineers searched for something that could be contaminating the cockpit air, but the Air Force returned it to flight, sending the F-22s to the Persian Gulf, without finding the cause.

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Now, investigators are zeroing in on a part of the flight suit called the "Combat Edge," which "hampers breathing and causes oxygen loss when combined with a physiological condition that collapses air sacs in the lungs," CNN reports.

The Air Force report is also expected to state that another possible problem for pilots is a condition called acceleration atelectasis, which causes a pilot's lungs to not effectively deliver oxygen to the bloodstream. The extreme effects of g-forces along with the pure oxygen breathed by pilots could lead to the condition.

Following the "60 Minutes" report, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta limited the flights of the F-22 fighter jet to regions where pilots can quickly land the plane if they experience oxygen problems, and also ordered the investigation into the oxygen deprivation problem. The report detailed above is just the first of the monthly updates expected from the Air Force on the problem.

Watch the full "60 Minutes" report below

[ameier5309]

The big issue here is that it took members of Congress and pilots going to the media to get the Air Force to investigate such a major problem. As the Project On Government Oversight has noted, the Air Force says it has weighed the safety risks of the F-22 with the security risks of the F-22 not being able to complete its mission; how can it do that if its pilots are being deprived of oxygen?

[Lifesablast]

Have they explained all this to the wives and children of the dead
pilots?

[itgranny]

These things went into production in 2003. That's 9 years and now after loss of life, pilots refusing to fly them and finally, the bug 60 minutes story,they are saying it's not the jet, it's the flight suit. Are we really supposed to believe this?

[itgranny]

These things went into production in 2003. That's 9 years and now after loss of life, pilots refusing to fly them and finally, the bug 60 minutes story,they are saying it's not the jet, it's the flight suit. Are we really supposed to believe this?

[raymailhot]

The most advanced fighter in the world and we have technical difficulties. What does America expect? This is the front end of technology, and these things will be fixed and not by the media.

[jsf14]

So have the apologized for blaming that F-22 crash on "pilot error"? I did not see that they took that finding back, but perhaps I skipped over the retraction.