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Software Bug Halts F-22 Flight

Posted by kdawson on from the dare-you-to-cross-this-line dept.

mgh02114 writes "The new US stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor, was deployed for the first time to Asia earlier this month. On Feb. 11, twelve Raptors flying from Hawaii to Japan were forced to turn back when a software glitch crashed all of the F-22s' on-board computers as they crossed the international date line. The delay in arrival in Japan was previously reported, with rumors of problems with the software. CNN television, however, this morning reported that every fighter completely lost all navigation and communications when they crossed the international date line. They reportedly had to turn around and follow their tankers by visual contact back to Hawaii. According to the CNN story, if they had not been with their tankers, or the weather had been bad, this would have been serious. CNN has not put up anything on their website yet." The Peoples Daily of China reported on Feb. 17 that two Raptors had landed on Okinawa.

4 of 579 comments (clear)

  1. Reminds me of the Bismarck by blind+biker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Bismarck battleship had a bug also: when the main turrets would fire, the aiming radars would be disabled. That's no joke when you're in the midst of a battle and everyone of those large caliber shells counts. As I understand, the radars would be disabled by the vibrations of the turret cannons firing. Not a software bug, but bug nonetheless, and you do wonder how did this battleship pass testing.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  2. Re:Real redundancy by spagetti_code · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, the space shuttle is not a good example.

    NASA do not fly the space shuttle during 31 Dec -> 1 Jan as
    they are not confident of what would happen. Better just
    to avoid the problem.

    That was one of the pressures to getting the Dec 2k6 flight off the ground.

  3. F16 Software had similar problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When F16s crossed the equator, the computer would roll the aircraft 180 degrees and fly inverted:

    http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/3.44.html

  4. Re:Don't worry by MSFanBoi2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually the whole story is a lot more exciting that 5 on 1...

    The 27th Fighter Squadron (8 F-22s) at Langley AFB, Virginia fought against 33 F-15Cs and didn't suffer a single loss. The F-15's again didn't even detect the F-22's until they were all locked and targeted.

    Then some months later during Exercise Northern Edge F-22's reached a 144-to-zero kill-to-loss ratio against F-15s, F-16s and F/A-18s. Only 12 of the F-22's accounted for nearly 50% of all kills for the Exercise.