[PopSci] The 2020 incident occurred in an F-22 and involved software called Auto GCAS. Plus, what to know about two additional incidents in the same aircraft type.In June of 2020, a pilot flying an F-22 in Alaska reportedly became disoriented, and the aircraft likely would have crashed were it not for the intervention of a software system on the fighter jet. The F-22 in question had departed Joint Base Elmendorf—Richardson in Anchorage, and was operating in "Instrument Meteorological Conditions" or IMC, which is when weather and visibility require the pilot to fly using their instruments. The incident, according to a short summary of the event provided to Popular Science by the Air Force Safety Center, occurred due to the pilot’s "spatial disorientation."
The pilot of the stealth fighter jet "was focused on their situation display and over-banked the aircraft to 135 degrees angle of bank and began to accelerate rapidly as the nose continued to fall," the Air Force Safety Center reported.