Admiral visits T-45C units

The Commander of Naval Air Forces, Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, spent two days at the end of this past week discussing issues with instructor-pilots, student-aviators and staff from three training air wings that fly T-45C aircraft at naval air stations Meridian, Miss.; Pensacola, Fla.; and Kingsville, Texas. The personnel had raised concerns and refused to fly the jet over safety and the risks associated with physiological episodes (PEs) caused by the oxygen breathing system in the T-45C. “It was important for me to hear directly” and share ongoing efforts to tackle this problem, Shoemaker said. The admiral indicated he’d been tracking events in both the T-45C and F/A-18 fleet of aircraft, but a “recent spike in T-45 events was cause for the Operational Risk Management (ORM) pause the pilots initiated” and a three-day directed operational pause that followed. The T-45C fleet was tentatively scheduled to be flying again early this coming week. (Source: Navy Live 04/09/17)