One of the Air Force Times's sources wonders if pilots starting up the jets inside during bad weather might be causing a running-car-in-a-closed-garage effect:

Because of the harsh climate, pilots often start their jet engines inside a hangar before taking off. That could allow exhaust gases to be trapped in the building, sucked back into the engines, and ingested into the bleed air intakes that are located within the engines’ compressor sections that supply the OBOGS, sources said. The layout, sources added, is standard for modern jet aircraft. But another source said that many of the hypoxia incidents have occurred well into flights or even during a day’s second mission, long after the plane has left the Elmendorf hangar.

Unable to fly, pilots are stuck in simulators and runway taxiing exercises for safety's sake. Investigators haven't given any clues to how close they might be to a solution, but if pilots are grounded more than 210 days, they all have to get retrained, inevitably an expensive option.

Expensive and problematic has become a trope for all things F-22-related. Just before the the toxin problem hit its tipping point, the jets were supposed to see their first combat action in Libya. Manufactured in Georgia and championed by Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, the jets lost the privilege of leading the first attacks over Libya after showing signs of communications and missile navigation issues. Meanwhile, folks at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) are starting to wonder why the government is still supporting the program.

"Given the extraordinary cost of this aircraft and the myriad problems in maintaining it (you can’t use a plane if it’s grounded), is the F-22 too expensive and too difficult to use?" asked POGO's Director of Investigations Nick Schwellenbach earlier this month. "The oxygen system issue is just the latest fiasco in this program."

Schwellenback links to a Washington Post article from 2009 that reports an F-22 requires "more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000." The government has so far sunk billions into the F-22 fleet.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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