Vice Admiral Chebi, “I Bet Your Life.”
V-22 Osprey
One of the smarter things NAVAIR did was to implement an Aviation Safety Management System. Part of the new practice was a concept called the “No Vote” where anyone involved in a flight evolution who perceived a safety concern should speak up immediately without fear of retribution. The evolution is then paused and the issue addressed and either resolved or mitigated to acceptable levels. This of course applies for test and training flights where Operational Necessity* does not rear its ugly head.
Military officials: ‘Widowmaker’ Osprey will fly with a faulty clutch
At a hearing Wednesday, lawmakers said one more fatality under these conditions and the program is ‘done.’
NICK CLEVELAND-STOUT
During a House subcommittee hearing on June 12, Vice Admiral Carl Chebi told Congress that the V-22 Osprey will continue to fly on a faulty clutch through mid-2025.
But while it will fly at a lower capacity of only 30 minutes at a time, this change would not have prevented a crash that killed three U.S. Marines last year.
In the last two years alone, 20 service members have died in Osprey crashes. Finally, after a total of 64 fatalities and 93 injuries, Congress has launched an investigation into the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey — known as the “widowmaker.” On June 12, the House Oversight National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee called on Chebi, adviser to the secretary of defense Peter Belk, and Program Executive Officer for Air Anti-Submarine Warfare and Special Missions Programs Gary Kurtz, to address the recent uptick in crashes.
One of the key questions for Congress was on the Osprey’s aging clutch. As defense analyst Julia Gledhill explained in these pages last year, the Osprey’s clutch will occasionally slip and disengage with one of the aircraft’s proprotors and can cause the helicopter to lurch and nosedive, in what is known as a hard clutch event.
“Over time, the clutch wears out and has a higher susceptibility to slipping which will cause a hard clutch event,” acknowledged Chebi during the hearing. “In 2022 we had a sharp increase in the number of hard clutches.”
Kurtz told the subcommittee on Wednesday that a rework on the clutch would be done “somewhere between mid-period of 2025 and the third quarter of that fiscal year.” The Department of Defense also removed clutches that have over 800 hours but will continue to use the faulty clutch until then, putting more service members at risk.
Not too long-ago Navy grounded its T-45 Goshawk training jets after instructor pilots were refusing to fly the plane because of a series of problems with the pilot oxygen system.
Dozens of instructor pilots refused to fly the jet because of a spike in the occurrence of dangerous physical symptoms triggered by a lack of, or contaminants in the oxygen system.
“We take the concerns of our aircrew seriously and have directed a two-day safety pause for the T-45 community to allow time for Naval Aviation leadership to engage with the pilots, hear their concerns and discuss the risk mitigations as well as the efforts that are ongoing to correct this issue,” said a Naval Air Forces spox in an email.
Unlike Admiral Chebi’s ‘Fuck it, fly it’ call. What would I do if I were an Osprey crewman? Hmmmm..
Thanks for the head’s up, Mick.
*Operational Necessity- The mission is deemed worth the potential loss of the aircraft.
Category: Big Navy, Guest Link, The Stupid is Strong
From wikipedia:
“Ospreys have a vision that is well adapted to detecting underwater objects from the air. Prey is first sighted when the osprey is 10–40 m (33–131 ft) above the water, after which the bird hovers momentarily and then plunges feet first into the water”
So what’s in a name?
So, the Osprey aircraft handles like a Stuka dive bomber?
“Hovers” and then “plunges”…
Damn…
Too bad the aircraft isn’t able to recover after taking the plunge.
In the marina where I keep my sailboat we have several families of nesting Osprey…seeing them do this a few yards off the stern of my sailboat in real time is absolutely amazing…
This is the best America could come up with?
We are truly fooked.
“One of the smarter things NAVAIR did was to implement an Aviation Safety Management System. Part of the new practice was a concept called the “No Vote” where anyone involved in a flight evolution who perceived a safety concern should speak up immediately without fear of retribution.”
They need to load all those onto the Littoral Combat Ships and send them to the Ukraine for destruction.
I vote that V(ery) A(ssinine) Carl Chebi be mandated to fly in Ospreys with worn clutches 3 times daily for a minimum of 90 minutes per iteration until 2026
^Word^ To paraphrase Chief Lone Watie… “You fly it.”
What the actual phuque! Ok, you got 20 crashed and burned at a replacement cost north of $70 million each. 64 KIA at what total replacement cost. 93 WIA at what replacement cost. What is the replacement cost of the bad part (s)? I know that math is hard but it shouldn’t take long to calculate the losing one (1) more birds (and passengers/crews) would cost more than replacing the bad part(s). And what good is this bird if it can’t fly more than 30 minutes at a time? Everyday when we read of the pure stupidity of these type “decisions” you have to wonder what dahell are your thinking, Numbnuts? FFS, if a mechanic tells you that something is broke on a vehicle (and you trust the mechanic) you fix the sonofabitch! I wouldn’t operate my Nismo if I was concerned about its clutch. DAAAYUUUM!
Remember when Flag/GOs were supposed to have some sense? Ground the entire fleet and start fixing the mofos TODAY…or scrap the entire program and start anew.
A fitting operational move, after all if it’s good enough for the aircrews he’s responsible for it should be good enough for him as well…
Fuck that guy.
These things have been falling out of the sky since the 80’s. We had a pact in Yuma that we would not get on one of these things and take a court martial first. Everyone was deathly afraid of those things. 40 years later and they are still falling out of the sky, sounds like the definition of insanity.
There is a memorial for one that went down up in Marana Az right before 9/11
It’s definitely earned it’s nickname
After 4½ years of Osprey training and duty, by end of summer 2024,
the son of MarineDad61 will fly the Osprey no more.
PCS to Texas soon, to become a (prop) flight instructor.
🙂
When AB Son was in Djibouti he heard/saw more than one of those things bite the runway.
Not something you want your Troops to have to fly.
Huh, this attitude should go a long way in solving the recruiting issues in the military….
“We know the aircraft isn’t safe, but fuck you you’re flying it today”
….Some years back, USAF discovered that counterfeit parts for the ACES II ejection seat had gotten loose in the supply chain. Their attitude was , “Screw you; fly it anyways.”
At least one death attributable, and more may be.
This is bringing back memories of jokes about oxymorons.
You know
Military Intelligence
Navy Flight Safety
etc.
As KoB has stated elsewhere humor has to have a kernel of truth.
In my aviation career I’ve lived through a number of things like this
Sometime prior to Jan 1980 the BOLDFACE for the T-37 Ejection was changed to read.
That mitigated a risk uncovered that both trigger cables weren’t operable/serviceable in all jets and there were insufficient spares to resolve the issue immediately.
“*Operational Necessity- The mission is deemed worth the potential loss of the aircraft.”
And crew.
Query: Is everyone presently on AD with a rank above O-4 a moron?
Always has been
They should never have gotten rid of the Phrog. It worked, rarely crashed, and carried more troops than the Flying Edsel.