DoD IG rules F-22 AIB report not supported by facts

This is fairly big news for the F-22 community, because a lot of Raptor drivers were up in arms over the AIB report into the fatal crash of Capt Jeff Haney's F-22 in Alaska in November 2010. The AIB report blamed Capt Haney for the crash, despite a failure of the life support system in the aircraft. The president of the board stated that Capt Haney became distracted while trying to activate his emergency oxygen generator, and failed to maintain a scan, and allowed the aircraft to enter the dive that ultimately ended in the aircraft impacting the ground.

The F-22 community immediately slammed the AIB, due to the fact that the emergency oxygen activation handle is very difficult to reach, and you have to twist yourself around into an awkward position to reach it, as well as other assertions made in the report. Eventually the DoD Inspector General decided to take a look at the report.

The IG report was just released, and states that the report's conclusions are not supported by facts ascertained.

"We concluded that the AIB Statement of Opinion regarding the cause of the mishap was not supported by the facts within the AIB report consistent with the clear and convincing standard of proof established by AFI 51-503," writes Randolph Stone, the Pentagon's deputy inspector general in a memo attached to the report. "Our conclusion was supported by five individual findings, and we recommended that the AIB report be reevaluated in light of our findings."

The IG report states that while the report cites channelized attention (the oxygen generator), breakdown of visual scan, and unrecognized spatial disorientation as causes, it fails to show how all three were interrelated. The IG report says that all three are separate, distinct and conflicting.

The AIB also failed to adequately analyze the various human factors it listed as non-contributory. "The AIB report's Non-Contributory portion of the Human Factors section inadequately analyzes the human factors listed, such as hypoxia, gravity-induced loss of consciousness, and sudden incapacitation and does not contain any references and/or supporting documentation. Without detailed analysis and proper documentation, it is unclear how the AIB determined that these factors did not contribute to the mishap," the IG report reads. "The AIB report lacked detailed analysis of several areas, such as the Emergency Oxygen System activation as well as the physiological reactions to lack of oxygen."

There were also numerous errors in the AIB report. "Of the 109 references in the AIB report's Summary of Facts, 60 of those references were either incorrect or did not direct the reader of the AIB report to the information cited in the paragraph," IG report notes.

Sourc e

Yet another case of the Air Force whitewashing their precious F-22. They don't want to allow anything to show it as being dangerous to pilots, or substandard to what they claimed. First they lied about what it was going to be able to do to Congress, now they lie in an accident report of a fatal crash, so that the F-22 had almost nothing to do with the death of Capt Haney. A number of people (some fairly high ranking) were outraged over the AIB report stating pilot error as the cause of the crash, and now it seems they were right to be.

Full AIB report
DoD report

reply to post by Zaphod58


WTF ? - the backup life support SHOULD be in an IMMEDIATLY accessible location - not in a location that requires contortions to get to it

ie - according to pics of the F22 cockpit - the ejector seat actuator is a big yellow pull ring - right infront the pilots crotch - i would have emergency oxygen activation - on a big red push button - right next to that

reply to post by ignorant_ape


That was one of the big causes of outrage in the community. They have to drop their mask from the left side, where all the comms and other gear clips, to get a better view, and contort themselves to the left to reach the handle, which means they aren't flying the jet until they get it activated.

They've apparently since redesigned the system, and are starting to install an automatic system, but that's a little late for Capt Haney and his family.

The Goddam US Airfarce seems to be killing more of its pilots than the ""enemies of freedom' these days.....

Originally posted by stirling
The Goddam US Airfarce seems to be killing more of its pilots than the ""enemies of freedom' these days.....

Well..its the Contractors and Aircraft Design Engineers in reality or upto a great extent.

PACAF has reconvened the AIB to rewrite the report to make it more clear. They won't reopen the investigation, because they say there is no new evidence.