V-22 Osprey’s Grounded
U.S. Military Grounds All Osprey V-22 Aircraft in Wake of Fatal Japan Crash
SIMON KENT
The U.S. military announced late Wednesday all of its Osprey V-22 aircraft have been grounded until further notice, one week after eight Air Force Special Operations Command service members died in a crash off the coast of Japan.
Hundreds of the multi-mission, tiltrotor aircraft will be affected as operated by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, in domestic and foreign theaters around the world.AP reports a preliminary investigation of last week’s crash indicated a materiel failure — that something went wrong with the aircraft — and not a mistake by the crew led to the deaths.
The fatal crash raised new questions about the safety of the Osprey, which has been involved in multiple fatal accidents over its relatively short time in service, as Breitbart News reported.
Japan grounded its fleet of 14 Ospreys after the crash.
Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, head of Air Force Special Operations Command, ordered the operational stand down of the Air Force V-22 fleet “to mitigate risk while the investigation continues.”
“The stand down will provide time and space for a thorough investigation to determine causal factors and recommendations to ensure the Air Force V-22 fleet to return to flight operations,” he outlined in an official statement.
The Naval Air Systems Command, which is responsible for both Marine Corps and Navy variants of the aircraft, said in a separate statement it too was grounding all V-22 Ospreys “out of an abundance of caution.”
The litany of past fatal accidents involving the aircraft is long.
Stand the entire fleet of Ospreys down. Keep them there.
Category: Big Pentagon
From Wikipedia:
As of November 2023, 16 V-22 Ospreys have been damaged beyond repair in accidents that have killed a total of 62 people. Four crashes killed a total of 30 people during testing from 1991 to 2000.[1] Since the V-22 became operational in 2007, 12 crashes, including two in combat zones,[2][3] and several other accidents and incidents have killed a total of 33 people.[4]
“…indicated a materiel failure — that something went wrong with the aircraft — and not a mistake by the crew led to the deaths”
I’ll tell what went wrong. They built these damn things and make good service members fly in them. If a brick goes fast enough it flies, but when it slows down it falls out of the sky…like a V-22. How many more of our people are going to have to lose?
Thing first flew in ’89 and became operational on 2007? It took 18 years? Didn’t start testing for two years first in that even? WTF?
Sounds like this tilt-wing design is one step beyond the limits of practical (and safe) engineering.
Way past time to step back, and down, a notch.
What comes out may not be as “cutting edge”, may not be as expensive, may be a bit slower, but would definitely be safer for all concerned.
My thought also, either there’s a lack of lift when the thing stops playing helicopter and tries to play airplane, or, maybe, something just falls off that shouldn’t fall off of the machine.
Gee, I’m shocked. /sarc
Put Kongress Klown Kritters and the heads of the companies that pushed for the build out of these on the aircraft and send them on a “fact finding” mission. How many times do we have to promote this simple solution to the problem?
At least, in this case, they are not blaming “pilot error”? Sad that more had to die that this system has problems.
Nothing specific to report
from the Marines, or
from the Middle East.
RIP x 8.
Should have never taken the CH-46 out of the picture.
Expensive POS. Time to retire to the junk yard. Range and Speed are worthless if you crash on the way!