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Flying blind and freezing: Navy investigating terrifying EA-18G Growler flight

By: David B. Larter    February 23, 2018

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An EA-18G flies over the flight deck of the carrier USS Carl Vinson off the coast of Southern California. (MC3 Jake Cannady/Navy).

WASHINGTON — The two-seater EA-18G was cruising at 25,000 feet Jan. 29, about 60 miles south of Seattle on a flight from Washington state’s Naval Air Station Whidbey Island to Naval Weapons Station China Lake. The crew received a warning that the system that controls the cockpit air temperature and cabin pressure, known as the environmental control system, was icing.

By the time the flight was over, an elite aircrew with Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine was being rushed for medical treatment, and yet another failure of the EA-18G Growler’s environmental control system — one not seen in any of the previous physiological episodes linked to the ECS — was raising new concerns in the Navy’s sisyphean fight to stop physiological episodes from putting pilots at risk in the sky.

The temperature inside the cockpit suddenly plunged to temperatures reaching -30 degrees and a mist pumped into the cockpit, covering the instruments and windows in a layer of ice, rendering the pilots almost completely blind, according to several sources familiar with the incident and an internal report obtained by Defense News.

The fog inside the aircraft iced over the instrument panel, forcing the pilot and electronic warfare officer to use a Garmin watch to keep track of their heading and altitude while air controllers began relaying instructions to the crew. The pilot and EWO were forced to use the emergency oxygen supply, which was completely depleted by the end of the flight.

A heroic effort by the two-person crew and the ground-based controllers managed to guide the aircraft back to Whidbey Island, but both pilot and EWO suffered serious injuries due to frostbite. The aircrew suffered from “severe blistering and burns on hands,” according to the Navy internal report.

In a statement, Naval Air Forces spokesman Cmdr. Ron Flanders confirmed the incident and that the Navy was trying to determine the cause of the incident.

“The aircrew was treated upon landing; one of the aircrew is already back in a flight status; the other is not yet back in a flight status but is expected to make a complete recovery,”

“The mishap is under investigation; I cannot comment further. Once the investigation is complete, the Navy will determine which further actions are necessary.”