Pilots Suffer Frostbite & Fly Blind

Fighter Pilots Suffer Frostbite and Fly Blind When Their Cockpit Ices Over

The inside of the Growler fighter became an icebox when the environmental control systems failed.

By Kyle Mizokami

 U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO BY AIRMAN 1ST CLASS JEREMY D. WOLFF

The crew of a EA-18G Growler electronic attack jet were flying a routine mission last month when they got a frosty surprise—and narrowly avoided disaster.


The crew suffered severe frostbite after the cockpit's temperature regulation system abruptly failed. As the freezing crew fought through below-zero temperatures, their cockpit and instrument panels were covered in ice. Only the skill and determination of the pilots, controllers on the ground, and the crew’s smartwatches prevented disaster.

The incident took place on January 29, 2018. Defense News reports that the crew, on a routine flight from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, Washington to China Lake, California when the aircraft’s environmental control systems (ECS) failed. The ECS keeps the cockpit heated to a comfortable temperature and also pressurized.

Without ECS, temperatures inside the aircraft plunged to below-freezing levels. To make matters worse, mist was pumped into the aircraft, and the combination of water vapor and cold temperatures iced over the aircraft instrumentation panel and cockpit. The pilots could neither see outside the aircraft nor read their gauges for anything as simple as determining their compass heading.

In response, the aircrew aborted the flight to China Lake, turning to their onboard oxygen supply to counteract the loss of cabin pressure. The crew kept track of their heading with a Garmin smartwatch, and Navy air controllers fed them a stream of information allowing them to land the plane. Once on the ground, the aircrew were diagnosed with “severe blistering and burns on hands.”

Defense News says one member of the air crew is already back on flight status while the second is on track to a full recovery. The incident is just the latest in a string of incidents involving oxygen or environmental control systems on everything from prop-driven trainer aircraft to the F/A-18 Hornet and the F-22 Raptor.

Read more at Defense News.