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The Air Force is rolling back rules which allowed more pilots to fly in the early weeks of their pregnancies. Critics worry that change is coming after the service disbanded groups which spoke to the needs of women. Steve Walsh with WHRO in Norfolk has the story.
STEVE WALSH, BYLINE: Part of the so-called heavy community, Jessica Ruttenber flew big transport planes like KC-135s in Iraq and Afghanistan before retiring from the Air Force in 2021. Along the way, she had three kids.
JESSICA RUTTENBER: I noticed that there was a significant change towards my career trajectory the moment I decided to have children and become pregnant.
WALSH: Ruttenber says women feel pressured to choose between flying and having kids. As a lieutenant colonel, she volunteered to be on committees which looked at the data the Air Force used to ground women once they became pregnant.
RUTTENBER: And some of these studies were as old as the 1960s, using chicken egg studies, and that it was something that maybe had been put in place a couple decades ago and really wasn't looked at again.
WALSH: The Air Force hasn't collected a lot of health data on its women pilots, Ruttenber says.
RUTTENBER: We weren't using risk model assessments based on science that we could look at in each airframe. Instead, we were just like, you're pregnant. You're going to crash the plane - oh, no.
WALSH: In 2022, the Air Force introduced a policy that allows women to get a waiver from their flight surgeon to keep flying if they have an uncomplicated pregnancy. The service recently announced that policy is being rolled back. Citing the lack of data on the impact of g-force on pregnancy, Air Force officials now say pilots cannot fly anything with an ejector seat, which means some bomber seats and all fighters. The Air Force also cites the increased risk of miscarriage for the reason not to allow any flying in the first 12 weeks, but that 12 weeks applies to all women, not just pilots. Flying is actually safer than driving to the base, Ruttenber said.
RUTTENBER: The chances of dying in an Air Force aircraft in a noncombat environment was 0.11 per 100,000 flying hours. Now it's based on the Air Force's safety data. According to the United States Department of Transportation, there were 11 deaths per 100,000 driving hours.
WALSH: FAA rules for commercial pilots allow women to continue to fly while pregnant, Ruttenber says. Though there have been no mishaps from the 2022 policy, the Air Force is reverting back to similar rules used by other military branches.
DANIELLE WILLIS: I knew I wanted to fly things that went really fast.
WALSH: Danielle Willis was an Air Force fighter pilot until she retired this year after 28 years. There is a picture of her as a child, taken at an air show. She's giving the thumbs-up in the cockpit of a Blue Angel. She says some women stop flying as soon as they realize they are pregnant, but grounding fighter pilots without an exception means zero flight hours, she says.
WILLIS: So you're talking about the duration of the pregnancy, plus convalescent leave after having your children, plus parental leave that you have on top of that. You could be out of the aircraft for quite a long time, which then requires a lengthy requalification course.
WALSH: The colonel was part of a group which helped the Air Force design policies which remove the barriers women face, from gear that fit well to policies surrounding family leave. After President Trump took office, the Air Force cut the committees. The concern is that women no longer have a voice in the room, she says.
WILLIS: Women in the force are definitely talking about it because they want to continue to serve in the best capacity that they can. And as a recently retired officer, I want to make sure that our force continues to have the high standards that we've always had.
WALSH: The decision to roll back the pregnancy policy comes as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered the services to look at standards across the board, including the role of women in combat. For NPR News, I'm Steve Walsh.
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