Senior officials to testify on physiological episodes in aircraft

Congressional lawmakers on Capitol Hill will hear testimony at a hearing Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. from senior Defense Department officials and the principal engineer from NASA on physiological episodes occurring in military aircraft.

The House Armed Forces subcommittee on tactical air and land forces will hear from Lt. Gen. Mark Nowland, the deputy chief of staff of operations for the Air Force, along with Navy Physiological Events Action Team Lead Rear. Adm. Sara A. Joyner, and Clinton H. Cragg, who is the principal engineer at NASA's Engineering and Safety Center.

The hearing comes after growing concerns over "physiological episodes" occurring in T-45 Goshawks, a military jet-training aircraft manufactured by Boeing, and F/A-18 Super Hornets, as well as other assorted aircraft.

Reports on the topic have pointed to hypoxia being the root cause for the crashes. Hypoxia-related incidents occur when there is an inadequate amount of partial pressure of oxygen in the air.

Former Navy fighter pilot and F/A-18 standardization instructor and flight operations director Benjamin Kohlmann told UPI last year that hypoxia-related incidents were rare during his time in the Navy from 2004 to 2013, lamenting that the problem has only risen to prominence in the last few years.

"At a certain attitude, the concentration of air is insufficient to provide someone with human cognition," Kohlmann said. "The rule of thumb is that above 10,000 feet, prolonged exposure isn't going to give you enough oxygen to do the day-to-day things that you need to survive, so we rely heavily on those oxygen systems."

"I don't know what's causing it, maybe more attention is being paid to the issue, perhaps errors or mishaps that occurred in the past were not attributed to hypoxia-related incidents, but now are," Kohlmann said. "It's a mystery as to what the full extent of it is."

Related Links
Aerospace News at SpaceMart.com

Tweet

Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.

SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly

paypal only

SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once

credit card or paypal

Lockheed awarded contract for Taiwan F-16 program support
Washington (UPI) Feb 2, 2018
Lockheed Martin has been awarded a contract for foreign military sales in support of the Taiwan F-16 Peace Phoenix Rising program. The deal, announced Thursday by the Department of Defense, is valued at more than $13.3 million under a cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to a previous award contract. The Republic of China Air Force kicked off its modernization process last month, according to Taipei Times, and calls for 144 Lockheed Martin F-16 A/B Fighting Falcon's to be upgraded under the ... read more