The Air Force Times notes that in Congressional testimony, Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz said the Air Force did not blame Capt Jeff Haney, pilot of the F-22 that crashed in Alaska — despite the public report apparently to the contrary.

Schwartz [said] the Air Force did not blame Capt. Jeff Haney for the…crash in Alaska, despite the service’s own report that said Haney was at fault.

“We did not assign blame to the pilot,” Schwartz said during a House Appropriations Defense subcommittee hearing. “… This was a complex contingency that he did his best to manage and, in the end, we lost aircraft control.”

By contrast, the AF Times notes the report said

“I find the cause of the mishap was the MP’s [mishap pilot] failure to recognize and initiate a timely dive recovery due to channelized attention, breakdown of visual scan and unrecognized spatial disorientation,” Brig. Gen. James Browne, the president of the accident investigation board, wrote in the report.

The Air Force Inspector General has taken the unusual step of investigating the Air Force’s own investigation of the accident.

US House Rep Jim Moran (D-Va) told Schwartz there was a “suggestion” the Air Force was blaming the pilot to protect the F-22 program.