Breathless In Air! World’s ‘Most-Advanced’ F-35 Stealth Jet Faces NASA Scrutiny Over Safety Of Pilots

The woes of Lockheed Martin’s F-35, often dubbed the world’s most advanced fighter jets, are far from over. After cost overruns, operational snags, and technical glitches, the fifth-generation fighter is now under NASA scrutiny for reportedly causing breathing problems for pilots.

A US House Armed Services Subcommittee is demanding that the Department of Defense (DoD) investigate breathing problems for pilots flying F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, The Hill reported on Wednesday.

The subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces has inserted language into the 2022 National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA) to review the F-35’s breathing system for its pilots, the report said.

The language was inserted after the US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released a study earlier this year, which highlighted the issue, committee aides told reporters on a background call on Wednesday.

The NASA study investigated why F-15 and F-18 pilots had experienced breathing issues and its researchers also found that the F-35’s breathing system delivered an unpredictable amount of air flow at the beginning, middle, and end of each breath and that it changed from breath-to-breath, the report also said.

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