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ABC News | By LEE FERRAN | June 6, 2012
The same major defense contractor that is being sued by the wife of a dead Air Force pilot for allegedly
making "defective" F-22 fighter jets has been awarded nearly $20 million from the U.S. government to
install an automatic emergency backup system on the troubled plane -- a system that the pilot's family
says would've saved his life in the first place.
The Air Force announced late Tuesday that F-22 manufacturer Lockheed Martin won a $19 million contract
to replace the manual oxygen backup system with an automatic one on America's fleet of stealth F-22
Raptor fighter jets, already the most expensive fighters in history at an estimated $420 million each. The
contract marks the second time the Air Force has awarded Lockheed Martin a multi-million dollar deal to help
resolve a safety problem with the plane it developed.
The announcement came a month after an ABC News "Nightline" investigation into the F-22 -- a plane that
despite its sophistication has never been used in combat -- found that unexplained problems with the
plane's oxygen system had caused pilots in at least 25 incidents since 2008 to experience symptoms of
oxygen deprivation in mid-air and had contributed to the death of veteran F-22 pilot Capt. Jeff Haney.
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DOTy2Rx8IxQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The same major defense contractor that is being sued by the wife of a dead Air Force pilot for allegedly
making "defective" F-22 fighter jets has been awarded nearly $20 million from the U.S. government to
install an automatic emergency backup system on the troubled plane -- a system that the pilot's family
says would've saved his life in the first place.
The Air Force announced late Tuesday that F-22 manufacturer Lockheed Martin won a $19 million contract
to replace the manual oxygen backup system with an automatic one on America's fleet of stealth F-22
Raptor fighter jets, already the most expensive fighters in history at an estimated $420 million each. The
contract marks the second time the Air Force has awarded Lockheed Martin a multi-million dollar deal to help
resolve a safety problem with the plane it developed.
The announcement came a month after an ABC News "Nightline" investigation into the F-22 -- a plane that
despite its sophistication has never been used in combat -- found that unexplained problems with the
plane's oxygen system had caused pilots in at least 25 incidents since 2008 to experience symptoms of
oxygen deprivation in mid-air and had contributed to the death of veteran F-22 pilot Capt. Jeff Haney.
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DOTy2Rx8IxQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
