Navy Instructor Pilots “On Strike”?
Well, that’s the way one media firm (Fox News) phrased it in the intro to an online video – IMO somewhat misleadingly. But while “on strike” may overstate the issue, it does roughly describe what’s going on. Sort of.
What is going on is that apparently approximately 100 Navy Instructor Pilots in their flight training program have refused to fly training missions recently. Their justification for doing so is ongoing – and apparently worsening – problems with the T-45 Goshawk trainer aircraft’s oxygen system.
The problems cause incidents of hypoxia during flight without warning. The issue has caused the loss of at least one aircraft recently – last August, near NAS Kingsville in Texas – and has also caused multiple other recent incidents. Two flight instructors characterized the frequency of such incidents as happening approximately 3 times weekly.
This Fox article has more details. IMO it’s worth a read.
Category: Navy
Ground the fleet and find the problem. The Air Force has had several incidents (i.e., T-1 autopilot, F-15 structural cracks and separation) where the entire fleet of aircraft were grounded due to safety of flight. If this has truly been going on for five or six years, then quite a few someones need to be taken to task.
I am surprised it came to that level
a Emergency CASREP to NAVAIR would ground that whole system. Things changed?
Secondary point: NAS Kingsville is a long established Flight training Command. That is why NAS Great Mistakes is not needed.
They got some huge wild hogs around there. Good eating though
same with boot camp, they kept great lakes and did away with Naval Training Center San Diego….I think that was the pedophile Bubba the clinton that did that….now boot camp is a shopping mall, tell me clinton wanted what was best for the country!!
FWIW I am aware that this problem is real and endemic. I am familiar with a student pilot still in his training who has spoken about this from having experienced it.
This may be of some interest from the article posted above:
‘Among the hundreds of student pilots affected is Marine 1st Lt. Michael Pence, son of Vice President Pence – a factor that could put added pressure on the Pentagon to resolve the dispute.’
And I agree with Hondo, in that Fox News saying that the pilots are ‘on strike’ is misleading.
Those pilots are not ‘on strike’; they are making a legitimate safety call by not wanting to take flight students out on instructional flights in an aircraft that apparently has some significant problems with its oxygen system. In my opinion, to continue to do so would be irresponsible and dangerous.
Hypoxia is no joke, and its effects can be very insidious indeed.
The pilots and ground crew have an obligation to themselves and the Navy/Marine Corps to ground any aircraft they feel is not airworthy.
This is definitely an issue, and needs to be resolved. We don’t need trend analysis to see that an issue exists…and we certainly don’t need to kill aircrew and/or crash more aircraft to prove an issue exists.
Atkron,
Concur.
After all of the time that has passed since this problem was first identified, you’ll probably agree that it’s a foregone conclusion that there’s already a stack of OPNAVINST 3750.6 Series ‘Naval Aviation Safety Management System’ and OPNAVINST 4790.2 Series ‘The Naval Aviation Maintenance Program (NAMP)’ reports compiled on this problem that is probably just about as thick as a New York City telephone book. No more reporting from the squadrons should be required.
This needs to get fixed ASAP.
“In protest” we don’t protest in the service! Your fired. imho.
No protest involved. It’s a safety call, well within the authority of the instructors to make.
Its a training command, Sapper, not war. There is no “Operational Necessity” to risk aircrew lives or aircraft assets to complete the mission. Same with me in the flight test community. I’d throw the bullshit flag in a heartbeat, too, under similar circumstances.
I’m just a tank automotive type so forgive my ignorance, but I always thought aircraft had system redundancy built in. Is there no backup for the oxygen system?
There is a ‘Blow-out’ bottle located in the ejection seat, that gives them enough to breathe if they eject at high altitudes. I am not sure if they can utilize it outside that situation.
Other than that, our Corsairs and Hornets did not have redundancy. I doubt these trainers do either.
Just spoke with a retired Marine Corps Aviator buddy of mine who is familiar with the T-45 aircraft and its systems. He says that the pilots can indeed access the oxygen supply contained in their ejection seats during an in-flight emergency, but doing so will only provide them with approximately 20 minutes of oxygen before it is completely expended.
He said that there is also an associated emergency procedure to rapidly descend and get the aircraft back down below 10,000 feet as soon as possible where supplementary oxygen is no longer required.
Thing is, something changed. This system was originally installed in the F-14 and worked just fine. It used the aircraft engine’s bleed-air system to syphon off air and then “reoxygenate” it to a high O2 level, which was then fed to the crew’s masks.
This system was designed to eliminate the O2 bottles and remove most of the LOX facility from carriers and land based use. It ( the LOX program) was deemed to unsafe to continue use. However, many aircrew will swear by the value of LOX in a post-liberty sitution. 🙂
BUT……. The new F-22 as well as the F/A-18 platforms all use the OBOGS system and have experienced similar situations to what the Goshawks are, including several fatal situations.
https://aerocontent.honeywell.com/aero/common/documents/myaerospacecatalog-documents/Defense_Brochures-documents/Life_Support_Systems.pdf
Again, something has changed in the system, and it needs to be found and fixed NOW! before other aircrew are lost.
I saw that Fox article yesterday and was positively livid. This has been a recurring problem for years and now it has gotten to the point that pilots, experienced pilots with thousands of hours, are saying, “Enough. Fix this.” I am 100% behind the pilots. Instead of jerking off about an admiral who broke a rule or two, Congress should be–no, should have been–all over this.
Didn’t I read where the F-35 had this issue (supposedly since fixed) and that there are still instances of FA-18s having issues?
CC, I think the problem is that hypoxia is sneaky – same as carbon monoxide poisoning (which essentially does the same thing, deprives the body of sufficient free oxygen to support consciousness) – it can be like someone flips the ‘on’ switch to ‘off’ in your head. My Dad was hit with CO poisoning once, he hit a pocket of it high in a generator building and passed out – luckily when he fell he rolled downstairs into fresh air and revived. Sore as hell from rolling down the stairs was better than being dead.
F-22
Why has this not been properly addressed prior to this? I read the article.
“Some instructor pilots point to Rear Adm. Dell D. Bull, chief of naval air training, as the culprit in ignoring the unsafe conditions.
“He is telling us to just ‘shut up and color,’” one pilot said.” – from article.
If that is true and not just hearsay, what’s his real issue? Others were quoted as saying ‘it’s the admirals.’
The article also states that the F/A18s have the same problem. It appears to be an engineering flaw. Remember the problem with the USAF’s shiny new stuff? Pilots passing out mid-flight. Stuff like that.
Three incidents per week are three too many.
Let me interject a few comments that may assuage some angst. First of all, before fleets are grounded and training stops, many questions need to be answered. My background is aviation. I am currently a test pilot and the unit safety officer. I have grounded a fleet before, but it was at my base, not the entire MDS. 1. Oxygen systems have various components. Was it the actual oxygen system or was it the hose/mask on the helmet? Did the IP/Student have a solid pre-flight on their gear? Was the life support tester the problem? 2. Was it a certain tail number that produced the problem? 3. Was it is a certain part number or component serial number that caused the problem? (various parts have numerous manufacturers). 4. Did that component come from a faulty batch (i.e. was the QA process incorrect? 5. Was the part installed correctly? Did it self-check on the ground? 6. When did the component fail? Was there an overheat sensor/temperature shut-off? 7. Was the aircraft modified in a way where the component was removed and not re-installed correctly? How long after phase inspection (overhaul) was this component failing? 8. Did the component fail at a certain time interval (xxxx hours of use)? Was it a fly until fail component? 9. Besides symptoms of hypoxia, did the component show signs of failure prior to pilots becoming hypoxic? Did the component have a leak? Was the regulator not indicating the flow of oxygen (white/black indicator staying one color? 10. Where is the actual component located? As in the previous post, it was found the oxygen system was poorly positioned for human factors (i.e., not easily viewable). There are numerous questions. It might seem simple to ground the fleet, but major consequences occur. First, student training stops. This creates a back log, slows down progression, and creates a ripple for the assignments guy. Student training will need to be re-arranged, but that is the scheduling shops problem. Remember, fighter pilots are in high demand. Does all training need to stop? The answer is no. Find tails that have… Read more »
Another example of the lackadaisical attitude of many in the higher echelons of the military when it comes to the troops on the ground, or in this case in the air.
If this has been going on for over six years it is a target rich environment for heads that need to be rolled out the damn door…
SNAFU rules…
I recall reading some 8 or 10 years ago that the F-22’s had a similar problem. Back when I was a wee lad (and my backside fit past the canopy rail) in the 1970’s there were liquid oxygen containers in the aircraft to provide O2 to the crew. These oxygen generators used now seem to generate more gases than oxygen. LOX handing was a b1tch and required the guys servicing the LOX bottles to be well qualified. But there never were problems like this. Maybe time to rethink the technology.
An unexpected problem arises form our highly-extended use of aircraft:
We find entirely new species of Gremlins at the far end of the age-curve.
If a vehicle has an expected service life of thirty years, and is replaced, you never discover that the Framazat Generator goes wonky at forty-five years.
Unless budgetary and political gymnastics lead to using the vehicle for fifty years. Oops.
Its called “The No Vote” part of Crew Resource Management taught annually to all Navy flyers. Essentially, anyone can call a halt to an evolution if that person feels unsafe. The activity stops, the issue is addressed and resolved one way or another. That’s what these pilots are doing, not striking. How do I know this? I was a CRM instructor.
This just in. According to the report linked below, the Navy has now grounded all of its T-45 training aircraft.
‘US Navy grounds T-45 training jet fleet following Fox News report’
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/05/us-navy-grounds-t-45-training-jet-fleet-following-fox-news-report.html
Good. All it took was some ballsey pilots and a bit of public exposure.
Thank God someone finally listened to the ones in the cockpit on this issue (even if Fox helped put more heat on the issue). A problem for YEARS and finally someone with some nads made the call to ground the fleet? The question needs to be asked – who were the idiots that ignored the problem for so long, and how many lives were lost because of their inability to fix the problem?
HMCS(FMF) ret,
These problems have been simplified. While the simple answer is to ground the fleet, there are serious ramifications that occur. See my post above to Ex PH2.
I sincerely doubt leadership is truly idiots, although this site has pointed many through the years. There is a lot more to this. I hope the grounding enables the fix to be found and quickly. I hope it was the pressure from the Instructor Pilot cadre and not FOXNEWS that spurred the grounding of the fleet. If not, I would agree with your idiot statement.
This is from the link below provided by Andy FMF… reading it, it looks like there’s a disconnect from the IP’s and those at NAVAIR who have been looking at this.
I understand about the ramifications of the grounding and the impact on the training pipeline, but pilot/aircrew safety should be priority #1. Sending anyone up in an aircraft with a faulty OBOGS system is crazy.
15 episodes in 2009, and it was up to 115 in 2015 – Goshawks, Hornets Growlers and even the F-35 have had problems with the OBOGS.
Someone is seriously dropping the ball on this… it needs to be fixed or more aircrews are going to pay the price.
The link doesn’t show much except a text message with little to offer on the topic. I honestly do not see leadership seeing this problem and ignoring. Thankfully, no commander I have ever met would send someone up in an aircraft with a faulty OBOGS or other safety issue. It sounds like they do not know what the cause is. That is the more the issue. Maybe they can’t tell a good system from a bad system, or when it will fail. So do you halt all flying of every aircraft with this system? What about range times, test schedules, etc that take months to schedule in advance…and cost lots of money? As for those numbers, how many aircraft did they fly annually, how many sorties, how many hours? What I can estimate would be 10,000+ sorties of all those aircraft, which puts the problem in a very rare situation. However, if one airframe seems to have a prevailing problem, worsening over time, I would pay particular attention. My unit was tasked to find why a certain phenomenon was occurring during a specific MDS during aerial refueling. A year previous to my moving to a test squadron, my combat squadron commander put a halt to all aerial refueling at my unit after an incident. He contacted the other units in the group, the group commander, and the wing commander. Afterwards, it trickled up the chain of command until all the units ceased aerial refueling training, with the exception of those preparing for combat (risk vs. reward). The outcome became the need for an O-6’s approval to conduct refueling training. Smart to limit the dangerous situation, but is has serious ramifications. Not only will younger pilots’ skills diminish, but tankers need training as well. If you think basic currency will suffice, let me put you in a combat environment with a junior aircraft commander with minimal time on a tanker, and a tanker pilot who has not ridden the ragged edge of his stall limit to give gas. It is a tough situation, and the decision is not easy nor without… Read more »
Also, in the wing that I work, this physiological episodes is a special interest item. That shows it is of serious concern and will be discussed during the aircrew briefing.
Yeah, not so much a strike, or even a work slow-down. They are not refusing to fly, just refusing to expose themselves and others to the well known unsafe conditions in the airframes issued to them. No one would notice if it were only one. Happens all the time.
Good on them. Looks like a bunch of instructors concurrently having the same safety issue is finally going to result in the fix which should have happened a long time ago.
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-ips-revolt.html?m=1
A little more background on the issue
Safety in training is always a priority. it was always stressed in my time when during firing exercises ANYONE seeing a safety issue could call for a cease fire/ check fire.
A vehicle driver who found an unsafe condition on his vehicle would simply turn in his trip ticket and not drive it. Its not going on strike, its following procedures.
As far as I know, this issue was a Hazard Risk Index (HRI) that did not warrant further mitigation, as determined by NAVAIR. Regardless, the issue received an inordinate amount of time and effort by RDML Bull to raise the importance of the issue up the chain and in seeking a solution from NAVAIR. The problem remains insidious and though solutions have been implemented to mitigate it, they still do not have a clear reason for these PE’s occurring…