Schumacher
Senior Member
Now even ground crew are falling sick.
Do they really still don't know the cause or they just don't have a solution barring a re-design so they just keep it in the air saying investigations are ongoing delaying the tough decision as long as possible ?
Mystery Of F-22 Illnesses Grows
Mechanics On The Ground Also Report Getting Ill
By Larry Shaughnessy CNN
POSTED: 2:07 pm PDT May 9, 2012
UPDATED: 12:22 am PDT May 10, 2012
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Even as the Air Force searches for the reason pilots are getting sick flying the F-22, a new mystery about the troubled stealth fighter jet has come to light: Why are mechanics on the ground getting sick in the plane as well?
The Air Force has been looking into a number of reports that pilots experienced "hypoxia-like symptoms" aboard F-22s since April 2008. Hypoxia is oxygen deficiency.
The Air Force reports 25 cases of such systems, including 11 since September, when the service cleared the F-22 fleet to return to flight after a four-month grounding.
The fleet was grounded in May 2011 so the service could check the hypoxia reports, but the order was lifted in September under a "return to fly" plan, with equipment modifications and new rules including daily inspections of the life-support systems.
"Early on in the return to fly we had five maintainers that reported hypoxia symptoms," Gen. Daniel Wyman, command surgeon for the Air Combat Command, said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday.
The maintainers are mechanics on the F-22's ground crews who sometimes have to be in the cockpit while the jet's engine is doing a ground run.
"The maintainers, when they are doing their ground run, are not on the mask, they are in the cockpit," Wyman said.
The problem with maintainers getting sick while on the ground throws a wrench into some of the theories about why at least 25 pilots have suffered hypoxia symptoms.
The Air Force experts trying to figure out the cause of the problem have pointed out that the F-22 flies higher and faster than its predecessors, the F-15 and F-16.
There has also been speculation that there perhaps could be a problem with the system that feeds oxygen to the pilot's mask while in flight.
Asked what is causing the symptoms in maintainers on the ground, not wearing a mask, Wyman said, "I can't answer that at this time."
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Do they really still don't know the cause or they just don't have a solution barring a re-design so they just keep it in the air saying investigations are ongoing delaying the tough decision as long as possible ?
Mystery Of F-22 Illnesses Grows
Mechanics On The Ground Also Report Getting Ill
By Larry Shaughnessy CNN
POSTED: 2:07 pm PDT May 9, 2012
UPDATED: 12:22 am PDT May 10, 2012
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Even as the Air Force searches for the reason pilots are getting sick flying the F-22, a new mystery about the troubled stealth fighter jet has come to light: Why are mechanics on the ground getting sick in the plane as well?
The Air Force has been looking into a number of reports that pilots experienced "hypoxia-like symptoms" aboard F-22s since April 2008. Hypoxia is oxygen deficiency.
The Air Force reports 25 cases of such systems, including 11 since September, when the service cleared the F-22 fleet to return to flight after a four-month grounding.
The fleet was grounded in May 2011 so the service could check the hypoxia reports, but the order was lifted in September under a "return to fly" plan, with equipment modifications and new rules including daily inspections of the life-support systems.
"Early on in the return to fly we had five maintainers that reported hypoxia symptoms," Gen. Daniel Wyman, command surgeon for the Air Combat Command, said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday.
The maintainers are mechanics on the F-22's ground crews who sometimes have to be in the cockpit while the jet's engine is doing a ground run.
"The maintainers, when they are doing their ground run, are not on the mask, they are in the cockpit," Wyman said.
The problem with maintainers getting sick while on the ground throws a wrench into some of the theories about why at least 25 pilots have suffered hypoxia symptoms.
The Air Force experts trying to figure out the cause of the problem have pointed out that the F-22 flies higher and faster than its predecessors, the F-15 and F-16.
There has also been speculation that there perhaps could be a problem with the system that feeds oxygen to the pilot's mask while in flight.
Asked what is causing the symptoms in maintainers on the ground, not wearing a mask, Wyman said, "I can't answer that at this time."
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