This is not a combat situation. One does not have to obey an unlawful order. In the first Gulf War (1990's), there was an incident where an NCO ordered an enlisted person to give him sexual relief. The person disobeyed it because it was an unlawful order.
If you feel your life or the lives of others may be affected by training missions with unnecessary risks, it can be justified.
There were a number of incidents in the T-45 recently where pilots passed out from hypoxia.
If an aircraft does not pass ground inspection, a pilot could refuse to fly it (such as a GIANT crack in the wing).
The UCMJ does not mandate blind obedience to every order. Indeed if an order is unlawful, your duty is to disobey that order (i.e. an order to kill enemy wounded or otherwise commit a crime).
In this case, the pilots refused to fly an aircraft they have reasonable reason to believe is unsafe, hazarding their life and the lives of their students for no good reason. If their chain of command attempted to court martial them, that fact would provide an effective defense. The leadership realized that.
Military service involves placing your life on the line during combat or critical operations. But during training, safety is paramount, casualties during training are not available for the fight. Even SEAL training, the most intense the military offers, has limits. Which is why training deaths are rare throughout the armed forces.
“Histotoxic hypoxia” is the medical term associated with the disorientating disorder which can put pilots’ lives at risk, as well as those of civilians on the ground below. Two instructor pilots say the training jets are now averaging three incidents a week, as the Navy struggles to get to the bottom of the contamination.
Do you want jets falling out of the sky over residental neighborhoods?
The instructors had to boycott to get attention to this problem.
On pre-flight Red X the airplane, that grounds it, do it to enough of them, problem will be solved.
Taking up an unsafe aircraft could be considered an illegal order, not to be followed. I am a retired Army Officer, we have the duty not to obey illegal orders.