Another Airman killed by Osprey

[PLB]

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your ... st-1-dead/

It is passed time to condemn this POS craft and retire it from service. It is way too complicated and fragile to continue in use.

Paul

[S. Murray]

Back in 2018, I was in a class with a CV-22 Flight Engineer, and the topic of the aircraft's safety reputation came up. He pointed out that the CV-22 had the best safety rating of any aircraft operated by the US Air Force, with only 2 crashes and zero fatalities. (Interesting fact--both crashes were by the same pilot...) ALL of the other fatalities/crashes were operated by the US Marine Corps. He was a prior C130 crew chief, and there were several other aircraft maintenance E6's in the class, and we got to discussing what factors could lead to the same aircraft could have a very high mishap/fatality rate with one service, and a very low one with the other. I wish I would have taken notes with what we had come up with.

[Poohbah]

Back in 2018, I was in a class with a CV-22 Flight Engineer, and the topic of the aircraft's safety reputation came up. He pointed out that the CV-22 had the best safety rating of any aircraft operated by the US Air Force, with only 2 crashes and zero fatalities. (Interesting fact--both crashes were by the same pilot...) ALL of the other fatalities/crashes were operated by the US Marine Corps. He was a prior C130 crew chief, and there were several other aircraft maintenance E6's in the class, and we got to discussing what factors could lead to the same aircraft could have a very high mishap/fatality rate with one service, and a very low one with the other. I wish I would have taken notes with what we had come up with.

Define "high." The USMC had the misfortune of going it alone during RDT&E, and they made all of the mistakes. In an operational environment, it's doing fairly well.

[Johnnie Lyle]

Back in 2018, I was in a class with a CV-22 Flight Engineer, and the topic of the aircraft's safety reputation came up. He pointed out that the CV-22 had the best safety rating of any aircraft operated by the US Air Force, with only 2 crashes and zero fatalities. (Interesting fact--both crashes were by the same pilot...) ALL of the other fatalities/crashes were operated by the US Marine Corps. He was a prior C130 crew chief, and there were several other aircraft maintenance E6's in the class, and we got to discussing what factors could lead to the same aircraft could have a very high mishap/fatality rate with one service, and a very low one with the other. I wish I would have taken notes with what we had come up with.

Define "high." The USMC had the misfortune of going it alone during RDT&E, and they made all of the mistakes. In an operational environment, it's doing fairly well.

That describes both the benefits of having an epidemiologist and why being one sucks at the same time.

Fatalities are “high” only because we live in a world where aviation has developed to the point where it makes cars look dangerous. Our parents and older brothers would have probably killed for an airframe that safe.

[Poohbah]

Back in 2018, I was in a class with a CV-22 Flight Engineer, and the topic of the aircraft's safety reputation came up. He pointed out that the CV-22 had the best safety rating of any aircraft operated by the US Air Force, with only 2 crashes and zero fatalities. (Interesting fact--both crashes were by the same pilot...) ALL of the other fatalities/crashes were operated by the US Marine Corps. He was a prior C130 crew chief, and there were several other aircraft maintenance E6's in the class, and we got to discussing what factors could lead to the same aircraft could have a very high mishap/fatality rate with one service, and a very low one with the other. I wish I would have taken notes with what we had come up with.

Define "high." The USMC had the misfortune of going it alone during RDT&E, and they made all of the mistakes. In an operational environment, it's doing fairly well.

That describes both the benefits of having an epidemiologist and why being one sucks at the same time.

Fatalities are “high” only because we live in a world where aviation has developed to the point where it makes cars look dangerous. Our parents and older brothers would have probably killed for an airframe that safe.

The Phrog (CH-46E) was getting grounded about once every three months during my final two years of service in the Marines (1989-91), always after a fatal mishap. Tried and tested . . . and worn out.

[kdahm]

Class A mishaps per 100,000 flight hours


Between 2016 and 2020, US Blackhawks had 18 Class A mishaps over 1.7 million hours, for a rate of 0.87 per 100,000. Blackhawk accidents have killed 970 crew and passengers over it's lifespan.

[James1978]

Somebody things something is warranted . . .

US military grounds entire fleet of Osprey aircraft
By Tara Copp, AP
December 6, 2023

WASHINGTON — The military announced late Wednesday it was grounding all of its Osprey V-22 helicopters, one week after eight Air Force Special Operations Command service members died in a crash off the coast of Japan.

The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps took the extraordinary step of grounding hundreds of aircraft after a preliminary investigation of last week’s crash indicated that a materiel failure — that something went wrong with the aircraft — and not a mistake by the crew led to the deaths.

The 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. Japan grounded its fleet of 14 Ospreys after the crash.

Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, head of Air Force Special Operations Command, directed the standdown “to mitigate risk while the investigation continues,” the command said in a statement. “Preliminary investigation information indicates a potential materiel failure caused the mishap, but the underlying cause of the failure is unknown at this time.”

In a separate notice, Naval Air Systems Command said it was grounding all Ospreys. The command is responsible for the Marine Corps and Navy variants of the aircraft.

The Air Force said it was unknown how long the aircraft would be grounded. It said the standdown was expected to remain in place until the investigation has determined the cause of the Japan crash and made recommendations to allow the fleet to return to operations.

The U.S.-made Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but can rotate its propellers forward and cruise much faster, like an airplane, during flight.

Its unique design has been a factor in multiple incidents. While the investigation into last week’s crash has only just begun, it renewed attention on the aircraft’s safety record, particularly on a mechanical problem with the clutch that has troubled the program for more than a decade. There also have been questions as to whether all parts of the Osprey have been manufactured according to safety specifications.

In August, the Marines found that a fatal 2022 Osprey crash was caused by a clutch failure, but the root cause was still unknown. In its report on the crash, the Marines forewarned that future incidents “are impossible to prevent” without improvements to flight control system software, drivetrain component material strength, and robust inspection requirements.”

Air Force Special Operations Command has 51 Ospreys, the U.S. Marine Corps flies as many as 400 and U.S. Navy operates 27.

The Osprey is still a relatively young aircraft in the military’s fleet — the first Ospreys only became operational in 2007 after decades of testing. But more than 50 troops have died either flight testing the Osprey or conducting training flights in the aircraft, including 20 deaths in four crashes over the past 20 months.

An [url=The 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. Japan grounded its fleet of 14 Ospreys after the crash.

Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, head of Air Force Special Operations Command, directed the standdown “to mitigate risk while the investigation continues,” the command said in a statement. “Preliminary investigation information indicates a potential materiel failure caused the mishap, but the underlying cause of the failure is unknown at this time.”

In a separate notice, Naval Air Systems Command said it was grounding all Ospreys. The command is responsible for the Marine Corps and Navy variants of the aircraft.

The Air Force said it was unknown how long the aircraft would be grounded. It said the standdown was expected to remain in place until the investigation has determined the cause of the Japan crash and made recommendations to allow the fleet to return to operations.

The U.S.-made Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but can rotate its propellers forward and cruise much faster, like an airplane, during flight.

Its unique design has been a factor in multiple incidents. While the investigation into last week’s crash has only just begun, it renewed attention on the aircraft’s safety record, particularly on a mechanical problem with the clutch that has troubled the program for more than a decade. There also have been questions as to whether all parts of the Osprey have been manufactured according to safety specifications.

In August, the Marines found that a fatal 2022 Osprey crash was caused by a clutch failure, but the root cause was still unknown. In its report on the crash, the Marines forewarned that future incidents “are impossible to prevent” without improvements to flight control system software, drivetrain component material strength, and robust inspection requirements.”

Air Force Special Operations Command has 51 Ospreys, the U.S. Marine Corps flies as many as 400 and U.S. Navy operates 27.

The Osprey is still a relatively young aircraft in the military’s fleet — the first Ospreys only became operational in 2007 after decades of testing. But more than 50 troops have died either flight testing the Osprey or conducting training flights in the aircraft, including 20 deaths in four crashes over the past 20 months.

An Osprey accident in August in Australia killed three Marines. That accident also is still under investigation.

[Pdf27]

Somebody thinks something is warranted . . .

Probably. I wouldn't assume that this is regarded as a potential design issue though, or at least not a fundamental one - the threshold for grounding a type isn't all that high at the moment (no imminent risk of needing it in a shooting war, low political tolerance for training casualties), and it looks like they have evidence something broke on the aircraft other than the pilot.

[James1978]

Deadly Osprey Crashes Prompt Congressional Probe into Aircraft's Safety
By Rebecca Kheel
Published December 21, 2023

A string of incidents involving V-22 Ospreys, including the crash off the coast of Japan last month that killed eight special operations airmen, is prompting a congressional investigation into the aircraft's safety and performance.

In a letter Thursday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., requested Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin turn over a slew of documents on the Osprey program, including safety records, maintenance logs, accident investigations, performance evaluations and more.

"It is crucial for the safety of our service members to ensure transparency, accountability and a thorough understanding of the steps DoD is taking to mitigate any further mechanical risks," Comer wrote in the letter.

Comer gave Austin a Jan. 4 deadline to provide the documents to his committee.

The Oversight Committee's probe comes after what was the Air Force's deadliest Osprey crash to date. On Nov. 29, a CV-22B Osprey assigned to the 353rd Special Operations Wing went down into the ocean during a training mission off the shore of Yakushima Island, killing all eight crew members aboard.

After a preliminary investigation suggested the cause of the crash was a mechanical failure, the Air Force, Marines and Navy announced they were grounding their entire fleets of Ospreys to conduct maintenance and inspections. It's the first time all three services that fly the aircraft have grounded it at once.

The November crash was just the latest in a series of incidents and mechanical issues that has plagued the aircraft since its first flight in 1989. More than 60 service members have died in more than a dozen Osprey accidents since its first fatal crash in 1992, including 20 deaths just since 2022.

Last year, after the Air Force announced a surprise safety stand-down for the aircraft, the military services revealed they were aware of a mechanical issue known as a hard clutch engagement, or HCE, that had caused at least 15 known Osprey incidents between 2010 and 2022.

The underlying cause of the HCEs, which happen when the aircraft's clutches jam and shred internal components connected to the rotors, remains unknown.

Still, the military services have said they remain confident in the aircraft, which provides a unique capability with its tiltrotor technology that allows it to take off and land like a helicopter but fly at higher speeds like an airplane.

The aircraft's defenders also highlight a Marine Corps statistic that, for every 100,000 hours of flight, the Osprey has fewer mishaps than the F/A-18 Super Hornet, the F-35B Lightning II fighter jet, the CH-53E Super Stallion and other service aircraft. But that statistic doesn't account for what is believed to be the most common type of HCE incident, mishaps that are still costly and harrowing but that fall short of the top definition for incident reporting by the military that requires death, total destruction of the aircraft or more than $2.5 million in damages.

In his letter, Comer acknowledged the "significant advantages the Osprey can bring to combat" and that "statistically, the Osprey is not considered as dangerous as some other military aircraft."

But he also pointed to past watchdog reports on continued mechanical issues, the $120 million price tag to buy each Osprey, and the fact that most fatalities involving the aircraft have happened during training rather than combat, something he said his panel "remains alarmed" by.

"Given the gravity of the loss of service members' lives, increasing costs, and the future economic impact and innovative applications of Osprey program technology," he wrote, "the committee requests documents and information to shed light on aspects of the program's safety and performance."

Congress launches an investigation into the Osprey program
By Tara Copp, AP
December 26, 2023

A congressional oversight committee has launched an investigation into the V-22 Osprey program following a deadly crash in Japan which killed eight Air Force special operations service members.

The entire Osprey fleet remains grounded following the Nov. 29 crash with the exception of limited Marine Corps flights in emergencies. More than 50 U.S. service members have died in Osprey crashes over the lifespan of the program, and 20 of those died in four crashes over the last 20 months.

The Osprey is a fast-moving airframe that can fly like both a helicopter and an airplane — but its many crashes have led critics to warn it has fatal design flaws.

The government of Japan, the only international partner flying the Osprey, has also grounded its aircraft after the Nov. 29 crash.

On Thursday the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin requesting a massive amount of documentation on the Osprey’s safety record to be delivered to the committee by Jan. 4.

“Our servicemembers remain in harm’s way without resolution of known mechanical issues, " wrote the committee chairman, Kentucky Republican James Comer. “While, statistically, the Osprey is not considered as dangerous as some other military aircraft, the Committee remains alarmed that most fatalities involving the aircraft have happened during training exercises, not combat operations.”

On Friday Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and Rep. Richard Neal, all Massachusetts Democrats, also announced they were also pressing Austin for answers on the Osprey’s safety record. The three lawmakers represent the home state of Staff Sgt. Jacob Galliher, one of the eight Air Force special operations service members killed in the Japan crash.

“We urge the Defense Department, and the Departments of the Air Force and the Navy to ensure that the V-22 Osprey is safe to fly before allowing servicemembers from across the Commonwealth and the United States back on board,” the lawmakers wrote.

The Osprey only became operational in 2007 after decades of testing. Since then, it’s become a workhorse for the Marine Corps and Air Force Special Operations Command, and was in the process of being adopted by the Navy to replace its C-2 Greyhound propeller planes, which transport personnel on and off aircraft carriers at sea.

Shortly after the Nov. 29 crash, the Air Force said that a malfunction of the aircraft, not a mistake by the crew, was probably the cause. If it is the case, it will be the second known fatal crash caused by a mechanical problem with the aircraft in a year.

The Osprey is produced through a partnership between Bell Textron and Boeing. Both companies have declined to discuss the most recent crash, but have said they will work with the military however needed to support the investigation.

All three versions of the Osprey, the Marine Corps’ MV-22; the Air Force’s CV-22 and the Navy’s CMV-22 programs are overseen by the Pentagon’s Osprey Joint Program Office.

The Joint Program office said in a statement to the Associated Press that its engineering team has been integrated into the Air Force Special Operations Command investigation team looking at the Japan crash, and “sharing as much information as possible without compromising the ongoing investigation to find a path forward for the V-22.”

The Osprey has faced persistent questions about a mechanical problem with the clutch that has troubled the program for more than a decade. There also have been questions as to whether all parts of the Osprey have been manufactured according to safety specifications and, as those parts age, whether they remain strong enough to withstand the significant forces created by the Osprey’s unique structure and dynamics of tiltrotor flight.

Marine Corps Ospreys also have been used to transport White House staff, press and security personnel accompanying the president. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said those Ospreys are also grounded.

[David Newton]

Boeing.

That says it all.

[James1978]

DoD’s Claim That It Has Found The V-22 Problem Raises More Questions

By Eric Tegler
February 7, 2024

According to an Associated Press story, the Pentagon believes it has identified the fault that led to grounding the V-22 fleet. So far, it won’t divulge what that is.

The revelation late Tuesday that the problem has been nailed down and that the Pentagon’s Joint Safety Council is now working with the Services to return the 400-strong V-22 Osprey fleet to operations was offered without detail and in part by an un-named U.S. defense official who the AP says, “was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.”

Why the Pentagon is leaking information from an anonymous source on the supposed identification of the problem is an interesting question. Why it cannot share what its investigation of the technical issue which grounded the entire V-22 fleet following the November 29, 2023 crash of an Air Force special operations command CV-22 near Japan has found is no less interesting.

I reached out to the Offices of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) yesterday with a series of questions about a recently released report from the Pentagon’s Director Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) on the Navy’s CMV-22B variant which declared the tiltrotor “not operationally suitable” for its carrier onboard delivery mission. Today, I added questions regarding the assertions in the AP story.

As of this evening, replies have not been forthcoming. According to the AP report, the claimed success in pinpointing the problem has already initiated discussions about when the grounding can be lifted with some sort of operational or technical mitigations in place.

The chairman of the Joint Safety Council and commander of Naval Safety Command, Rear Admiral Chris Engdahl, told the AP that the council is talking with V-22 commands across the Air Force, Navy and Marines about their individual plans to restore Ospreys to flight status and the levels of risk they’re willing to tolerate.

“In aviation, they’ve done this before, but probably not on this broad scale with a platform like we have in the V-22,” Engdahl said.

The services’ eagerness to regain V-22 operations is a function of the tiltrotor’s sought-after capability and the need to forestall further extension of the grounding of such a complex and challenging aircraft to fly. As I noted in late January, the Marines are concerned about the degradation in their V-22 aircrews’ skills after two months of not flying.

A second anonymous defense official told the AP that the Marines are crafting a message to their V-22 units which would instruct them to begin recertifying Osprey flight crews, allowing up to 30 days for each unit to achieve safe-for-flight status.

The instruction would theoretically apply to V-22 maintainers as well. While the Marines and Air Force have kept their Ospreys “warm” by periodically running engines during the stand down, they logically cannot have been performing the routine maintenance that an active flight schedule would drive.

In the interim, the services have been using other platforms to take up the slack for the grounded tiltrotors. This has put stress on other portions of the joint force. While there has been no directly reported connection, a Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion heavy-lift helicopter was lost yesterday on a flight Creech Air Force Base, Nevada to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California.

The Super Stallion was located by civil authorities in Pine Valley, California this morning. Five Marines were aboard the helicopter and as of Wednesday evening their fate was unknown.

As to the specific cause of the problem which led to the V-22 grounding, the DOT&E report mentioned above noted persistent ice protection system issues with the Navy CMV-22B variant of the Osprey and other unspecified reliability issues. Some of these issues likely apply to the Marine and Air Force versions of the aircraft.

The icing problem has led to 44% of mission failures in the CMV-22B fleet according to the DOT&E report. While the figure is specific to the CMV-22B, icing issues may also affect other variants including the USAF’s CV-22s.

The lack of general information about V-22 reliability issues - aside from a well-known “hard-clutch engagement problem” which Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Chris Mahoney, said had largely been resolved in public remarks last month - has a continued theme throughout the history of the program.

It pairs, at least at present, with little information as to whether, or how, known technical issues with the Osprey are limiting its operational envelope and mission tasking. While Rear Adm. Engdahl alluded to mitigations that could allow lifting of the V-22 fleet grounding, he did not offer information on whether the return to flight operations would come with any significant restrictions on how the tiltrotors can operate.

This may be the most intriguing question currently unanswered. What kind of operational capability will the restored-to-flight V-22 fleet be able to deliver? If and when answers are supplied, I’ll update this evolving story.

[James1978]

CMV-22B Osprey “Not Operationally Suitable” According To Test Report

By Howard Altman
PUBLISHED Feb 6, 2024

Even before the entire fleet of V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft was grounded following a fatal crash of an Air Force Osprey off the coast of Japan in November, the Navy’s version was experiencing serious issues that limited its ability to fully perform its assigned missions. Those findings by the Pentagon’s top testing office come even though the Navy's former air boss called the CMV-22B a "game changer" after its first operational deployment in 2022. The Osprey grounding has also forced the Navy to resort to using its dwindling fleet of C-2A Greyhounds to perform essential Carrier Onboard Delivery (COD) duties.

“The CMV-22B was not operationally suitable due to failures of many subsystems, with the ice protection system accounting for 44% of the total operational mission failures,” the Pentagon's Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, or DOT&E, stated in its Fiscal Year 2023 annual report released last week.

Problems with the ice protection system are a significant concern for the CMV-22B, but there have been several potential drawbacks with having the aircraft take over the COD role since the program's inception. Those issues include a lack of cabin pressurization. Unless its passengers and crew are on oxygen, the Osprey has to fly at lower altitudes, through poorer weather, and over long distances, at turboprop-like speeds. Being that its destination can be far out to sea with no nearby divert field, that can include being forced to fly through highly inclement weather. There are other key advantages to having the CMV-22B on the COD mission, which we will discuss in a moment.

The 44% of mission failures due to problems with the ice protection system appears to be a significant increase from what was previously known.

As we noted in the past, in February 2023, as the Navy announced the CMV-22B had obtained its Initial Operating Capability (IOC), Bloomberg News reported that the aircraft wasn’t yet "operationally suitable." That was because it had only "partially met reliability requirements," the Pentagon’s testing office said in a non-public assessment. Among the problems was that the CMV-22's ice protection system “accounted for 25% of the operational mission failures, which will result in mission aborts."

The DOT&E report, released last Thursday, showed that the ice protection system failure was responsible for twice the rate of missions being scrubbed compared to the assessment cited by Bloomberg. We’ve reached out to NAVAIR, the Bell-Boeing Joint Office, and the Pentagon to find out more details. The Bell-Boeing joint venture company, which is the prime contractor for the V-22 family, deferred questions to NAVAIR.

The report did not specify which other subsystems were failing or whether they involve issues that led to previous groundings.

The CMV-22B is based on the Marine Corps’ MV- 22B design but with several changes to support the COD mission: increased fuel capacity to extend the range, fuel jettison system, integrated public address system for making announcements in the cabin area, high-frequency radio for over-the-horizon communications, and cabin and cargo lighting to assist with cargo loading.

"The Communications Upgrade suite includes a Link-16 tactical datalink and an Iridium satellite phone to enhance capabilities when conducting logistics, search and rescue, and mobility missions as part of a Carrier Strike Group," the report stated.

The Osprey has a controversial history that has included some high-profile mishaps, though it is unknown at this point whether any of its previous problems involve the other subsystems DOT&E said failed.

As we previously reported, the Air Force grounded its CV-22Bs in August 2022 after one of the aircraft made an emergency landing in Norway. There were thankfully no injuries as a result of that mishap, which was traced to an issue with a hard clutch on the Osprey.

Several months later, the Air Force, as well as the Navy and the Marines, grounded some of their Ospreys again in February 2023 over concerns with aircraft’s hard clutch.

The entire fleet of V-22 was grounded Dec. 6, 2023, after the Nov. 29, 2023 crash off the coast of Japan that killed all eight aboard.

Ospreys have suffered a number of serious accidents, some of which have been fatal and some that have been linked to other materiel issues, since the aircraft first flew in 1989. There have been three fatal Marine MV-22B crashes just since March 2022. The March 2022 crash was subsequently determined to have been caused by pilot error, while a crash that followed in June of 2022 was attributed to the hard clutch problem. The most recent Marine Osprey mishap, which occurred in Australia in August 2023 remains under investigation. There have been numerous other fatal Osprey mishaps over the years.

It's still unclear what problems led to the current Osprey grounding.

"We don’t believe the most recent problems are related to the hard clutch engagement issue, but we will not know definitely until the investigation is complete," Marcia Hart, NAVAIR director of communications told The War Zone at the time.

That standdown remains in effect, with no date specified about when it might be lifted.

In addition to the problems with the ice protection system, DOT&E found that the maintenance hours per flight hour (MH/FH) “did not meet the requirement, with 45 percent of the total MH/FH attributed to special inspections and scheduled maintenance requirements.”

The report did not state what the requirements are or name the reasons for the special inspections.

“Analysis is ongoing on the data collected in the second [Follow On Test & Evaluation] FOT&E for reassessing these metrics,” the report stated without saying why. Pentagon spokesman Jeff Jurgensen told The War Zone that the reassessment is based on aircrew familiarity with the Osprey.

“Given that the CMV-22B has been fielded for a period of time and crewmembers have become more familiar and trained on the system FOT&E allows us to reassess metrics with current operational data,“ he said.

Sometime in the next three months, there will be “an assessment of operational suitability, to include suitability of the Communications Upgrade suite and training using the Containerized Flight Training Device and the Virtual Maintenance Trainer,” that will be included in the Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2024 DOT&E combined FOT&E and Live Fire Test & Evaluation (LFT&E) report.

“Testing was still ongoing at the end of the FY2023 reporting period for this Annual Report," Jurgensen explained. "Once the test is completed, and data analyzed, we will submit the appropriate report. At the time of publication, we anticipated this to be 2QFY24.”

It's unclear if the problems cited in the DOT&E report have since been resolved or improved upon. We've reached out to NAVAIR for details and will provide a response when it comes.

The CMV-22B's first deployment, aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, was hailed as a success for what it brought to the table for transport services.

“With distributed maritime ops, longer ranges, distances between multi-carrier operations, distances from land-based areas, and the ability for the CMV-22B to plop down on unimproved spaces, it proved to be a game-changer for us on deployment,” Vice Adm. Kenneth Whitesell, then-commander of Naval Air Forces and Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said during a July 2022 Maritime Security Dialogue event hosted by the Center for Strategic & International Studies and the U.S. Naval Institute.

The ability of the tilt-rotor to use rolling landings and takeoffs when flying with large loads was essential, since the Osprey is tasked to transport particularly bulky and items, including spare F135 engines for the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter. The C-2 cannot move the F135 engine. However, the CMV-22B’s ability to do so does come with some caveats, as The War Zone discussed in this previous article.

During the July 2022 event, Whitesell cited several advantages the CMV-22B has over both the Greyhound and the Marine Corps' MV-22 tilt-rotor variant.

Its “increased gas payload” gives it a far greater operating range than MV-22, he said, adding it also has greater range than the Greyhounds.

In April 2023, Whitesell said the CVM-22B could be used for more than COD missions.

"If you look at the CMV-22 is designed with the actual bladders and fuel capability, the weight capability to travel stuff around, because it's meant to be able to support us in the Western Pacific."

The CMV-22's ability to go where the C-2 cannot — specifically to other ships in the Carrier Strike Group and austere bases ashore — is among its biggest advantages. This allows for a more flexible concept of cargo delivery operations, with the CMV-22 being able to deliver its cargo directly to other vessels and small bases ashore. It could also take on other, non-traditional roles.

“If [an] E-2D is not available, where can [a] CMV-22 be used as a communications [node]?” Whitesell offered as one additional role that's being looked into now. The E-2D serves as an airborne early warning and control platform but also provides critical advanced networking and data fusion for a carrier strike group and its aircraft.

Meanwhile, with the Ospreys grounded, the venerable Greyhounds have picked up the slack.

The Carl Vinson and the Theodore Roosevelt strike groups are now using them for COD, Navy CMDR Beth Teach told The War Zone. Though the Navy is planning to phase out the aging Greyhounds, a twin-engine, propeller-driven airframe that first entered service in the mid-1960s, these changes won’t have any effect on the carrier groups' ability to carry out their missions, Teach said. You can read more about what it is like to fly one in our interview with a former pilot here.

The Vinson strike group left on deployment to Japan with the Ospreys, but after they were grounded on Dec. 6, the Vincent group switched to the Greyhounds for delivery services, Teach said. The Roosevelt strike group, which left on deployment last month, departed with the Greyhounds.

The Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, meanwhile, was also supposed to be using the Ospreys for COD, but it is currently training off the coast of southern California, said Teach. That group will wait until the grounding issue is resolved before a determination is made for the Osprey to deploy with it, she added. Currently, COD services for the Lincoln are being provided by helicopters, she added.

While that works for a carrier close to shore, helicopters don't have the range or payload to provide COD missions for far-flung active deployments.

The C-2s are currently scheduled to sundown in August 2026, Navy CMDR Dawn M. Stankus, a spokesperson for Naval Air Force Atlantic told The War Zone. “Fleet Logistics Support (VRC) Squadron 40 located in Norfolk, Virginia is the last C-2 Greyhound squadron in the U.S. Navy. There are a total of 15 C-2 Greyhounds still in service to support logistics and personnel transfers on the East and West Coasts.”

While the Ospreys are "a critical upgrade and component to modernize the carrier air wing and a carrier strike group’s operational effectiveness," Teach said the Navy is making do during the grounding.

"We operate with multiple logistic redundancies, and a number of contingency plans remain in place to mitigate the impact to both deployed and underway aircraft carriers while the Naval Air Systems Command V-22 grounding bulletin is in effect," said Teach. "The Navy remains committed to safely flying and operating on the sea, land, and air."

The War Zone will have more on how the grounding is effecting COD services as well as the future of the C-2 fleet in the coming days.

[James1978]

V-22 Osprey fleet will fly again, with no fixes but renewed training
By Megan Eckstein, Courtney Mabeus-Brown and Rachel S. Cohen
March 8, 2024

The U.S. military will allow its fleet of V-22 Ospreys to fly again, three months after it grounded the entire inventory of more than 400 aircraft following a fatal crash off the coast of Japan in November.

The Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy will immediately start refreshing troops’ training and changing maintenance procedures as prerequisites for resuming normal operations, leaders from each of the services told reporters Wednesday.

But they acknowledged it will be months before the tiltrotor aircraft are fully back to flying real-world missions.

The Ospreys will receive no equipment modifications before they return to the air.

Marine Corps Col. Brian Taylor, the V-22 joint program manager, told reporters his office and the services “have high confidence that we understand what component failed and how it failed.” It’s still unclear why the part in question did not perform as intended.

Taylor and other service officials declined to say which component’s failure caused an Air Force Special Operations Command Osprey to crash into the sea during a training mission Nov. 29, killing all eight airmen aboard. They also declined to answer whether the aircraft would be restricted from flying under certain conditions or in certain areas due to the risk of a repeat problem.

The accident is still under investigation. The Air Force has shared its findings with the joint program office — which manages V-22 acquisition and maintenance for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — and the other services to better understand the material failure that led to the crash.

Because the wreckage of the Osprey sat under the Pacific Ocean for about a month before being recovered, the drive system is corroded such that engineers may never understand why the unnamed component failed, Taylor said. But investigators created a “fault tree” to map out potential causes, which are addressed in the services’ mitigation plan.

The main change will increase the frequency of an inspection that is already done on the aircraft — like upping the number of oil changes on a car, Taylor said. He said the change gives the component a greater “perimeter of safety” during operations.

Though Taylor repeatedly declined to offer information about the component, he said it is not the input quill assembly that attaches the Osprey’s engine to its proprotor gear box — the component that began wearing out early and caused a series of clutch malfunctions for Marine Corps and Air Force pilots in 2022. A portion of the Air Force and Marine Corps fleets were grounded in 2023 as those services studied how to mitigate the risk of so-called “hard clutch engagements” and when to replace worn-out parts.

NBC reported Feb. 19 the November crash may have involved “chipping,” where tiny pieces of metal wear off during use and can damage the engine. Taylor did not specify whether chipping played a role in the crash, but characterized it as a normal phenomenon for a mechanical system and said the V-22 has a sophisticated monitoring system that looks for small metal bits and alerts the pilot if any are detected.

Taylor made clear the November crash was unrelated to other previous V-22 mishaps.

“This is the first time that we’ve seen this particular component fail in this way, and so this is unprecedented” in the 750,000 flight hours amassed over the life of the V-22 program, he said.

Due to that long track record, Taylor said: “We are confident in the system.”

The ‘Gundam 22′ crash
The Nov. 29 accident was the deadliest Air Force mishap since 2018, and the fourth fatal Osprey crash in a two-year span. Twenty U.S. troops have died in Osprey incidents since March 2022.

The downed crew of “Gundam 22″ included Osprey pilots Maj. Jeff Hoernemann, Maj. Luke Unrath and Capt. Terry Brayman; medical personnel Maj. Eric Spendlove and Tech. Sgt. Zach Lavoy; flight engineers Staff Sgt. Jake Turnage and Senior Airman Kody Johnson; and airborne linguist Staff Sgt. Jake Galliher.

Six were stationed at Japan’s Yokota Air Base; two worked at Kadena Air Base. All were assigned to the Air Force’s 353rd Special Operations Wing.

The weeks-long, multinational search effort successfully recovered the bodies of all but Spendlove.

The U.S. military now flies hundreds of V-22s, largely operated by the Marines. The tiltrotor aircraft is known for its towering nacelles that allow it to launch and land like a helicopter, and speed forward like a fixed-wing plane. Troops use the unique aircraft to slip in and out of areas without established runways, where fixed-wing planes may not be able to land with troops and supplies.

The Marine Corps owns nearly 350 Ospreys; the Air Force and Navy operate smaller fleets at around 50 and 30 aircraft, respectively.

Beyond the safety and accident investigation boards studying the most recent crash, Air Force Special Operations Command is also conducting a deep-dive into its CV-22 Osprey program to determine whether it provides adequate training, resources and other factors to ensure airmen’s safety.

The Government Accountability Office and House Committee on Oversight and Accountability have also launched their own probes into the V-22. On Wednesday, Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who chairs the House oversight committee, said it had not yet received information from the military as it looks into the aircraft’s safety and performance.

“Serious concerns remain, such as accountability measures put in place to prevent crashes, a general lack of transparency, how maintenance and operational upkeep is prioritized, and how DOD assesses risks,” Comer said in a statement. “We will continue to rigorously investigate the DOD’s Osprey program to attain answers to our questions on behalf of American taxpayers and protect U.S. service members defending our nation.”

Marines prepare
As the biggest user of the V-22 platform by far, the Marine Corps has been most affected by the monthslong grounding. It relies on the Osprey to move people, supplies and weapons, and operates from ship decks and from ground bases.

Brig. Gen. Richard Joyce, the assistant deputy commandant for aviation, told reporters the Marine Corps has focused on keeping up troops’ proficiency on the Osprey since the grounding began in early December so the service could resume flights as quickly as possible.

“Our simulator utilization has been maximized to keep proficiency as much as possible in the virtual environment,” he said.

The service has gone as far as sending MV-22 pilots in Djibouti thousands of miles away to use simulators in Japan, and shipping MV-22 pilots who are deployed to the Middle East with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit back home to North Carolina for simulator training.

Now that the program office has cleared the aircraft to fly, the Corps’ most experienced pilots and aircrew will begin maintenance-check flights to get the Ospreys up in the air, then retrain on “core and basic skills,” Joyce said. Once those top personnel have brushed up on the fundamentals, they’ll pair with junior pilots and crew for additional basic training.

Joyce said it would take about a month for a squadron to get everyone back up to speed basic skills.

However, it will take more time for the personnel to retrain on more advanced skills and mission-specific tasks for combat assaults, transport flights and other missions.

The general said it would take until late spring or early summer to get back to pre-grounding readiness levels.

V-22 squadrons will go through more consumable parts, like filters, as they take on additional inspections and maintenance, he said. Those parts and training support will first go to deployed units, followed by squadrons with upcoming deployments, squadrons participating in key exercises or service-level training events, and eventually to test-and-evaluation units and those farthest from a future deployment.

The amphibious assault ship Boxer and the 15th MEU are set to deploy from California this spring, and Joyce said it’s not clear yet if they’ll be ready to bring the V-22 along. It’s one of the most pressing decisions related to resuming V-22 flight operations, he said.

Air Force’s ongoing studies
Airmen have done the work required to keep the Air Force’s Osprey fleet healthy during the three-month standdown, but “there’s only so much they can do with aircraft that are not flying,” Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind told reporters Wednesday.

He described a 12-week road map to getting the Ospreys back in the air that adds new maintenance requirements and allows experienced airmen to lead the way. The service will deviate from that plan as needed if work isn’t progressing on schedule.

Returning the aircraft to service begins with ground and simulator training that will include new safety controls and briefings, a review of aircraft maintenance records and refining squadron-level training plans to implement the new safety protocols, Bauernfeind said.

The Air Force did not elaborate on what new safety protocols will be introduced. AFSOC held an all-hands for Osprey crews Feb. 22-23 at Hurlburt Field, Florida, to explain the new safety protocols.

“We received very positive feedback that it was very beneficial to the crews,” Bauernfeind said.

The second phase will focus on returning air crews and maintainers to basic proficiency, initially targeted at senior aviators, instructors, evaluators and weapons officers. Simulator training has helped keep skills sharp during the standdown.

The phased approach gives the service time to absorb findings from the service’s initial safety investigation, an internal report meant to root out the cause of a mishap and prevent future occurrences. Bauernfeind received and accepted the findings of the safety board March 1.

He expects it will take the service more than three months to reach the level of proficiency it had on the Osprey before the Nov. 29 crash.

Bauernfeind said he’s confident in the service’s ability to safely resume Osprey operations before wrapping up two ongoing investigations. The Air Force has kept the families of the downed crew informed about the process, but has not told them the results of the recently completed safety investigation board.

“I have confidence that we know enough now to return to fly,” he said.

Navy’s path to at-sea missions
The Navy will take a similarly cautious approach to resuming its flights, putting only its most experienced personnel in the air first for basic flights in daytime-only conditions, Commander of Naval Air Forces Vice Adm. Daniel Cheever told reporters.

Those top personnel will then pair with junior sailors and eventually resume night operations and other, more complex training. The Navy will lastly resume training new pilots and aircrew at the fleet replacement squadrons.

But Cheever warned that returning to flight wasn’t the same as returning to mission: It may be several more months until the Navy sees its CMV-22Bs flying operational missions to haul cargo and people to aircraft carriers at sea.

Cheever said the Navy would avoid long, over-ocean flights until all personnel had built up sufficient proficiency. But when asked about any restrictions on the aircraft regarding duration of over-water flights, he deferred to NAVAIR. Taylor, from the V-22 program office under NAVAIR, declined to say whether there were or were not any operational limitations for the planes under the new return-to-flight plan.

Cheever highlighted the Navy’s flexibility and said all carriers at sea had fared well during the V-22 grounding. The Navy relied on its C-2A Greyhound, which is set to sundown in 2026 as it’s replaced by the CMV-22B, to resupply carriers at sea, including the Theodore Roosevelt deployed in the Indo-Pacific today.

He said the Navy also relied more heavily on its replenishment ship fleet and looked to load more goods onto carriers when they were in port.

But he noted the importance of getting the CMV-22 back to its mission, saying it can conduct medical evacuations and haul large F-35C engine components — unlike its aging predecessor.

[James1978]

Osprey fleet won’t return to full flight operations until 2025
By Courtney Mabeus-Brown
June 12, 2024

The U.S. military doesn’t expect its fleet of more than 400 V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to fully resume normal flight operations until at least the middle of 2025, a Navy admiral in charge of the joint program told a House Oversight subcommittee Wednesday.

Naval Air Systems Command boss Vice Adm. Carl Chebi, whose office oversees Ospreys in use across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, said a review that is probing whether the enterprise has adequate manning, training and equipment, will last another six to nine months.

“As we have findings from the comprehensive review, I will take the necessary actions to ensure continued safe flight operations,” Chebi told the panel of lawmakers.

The command allowed the Osprey to begin returning to the air — with flight restrictions in place — in early March, three months after the fleet was grounded in early December following an Air Force CV-22 crash off the coast of Japan that killed all eight airmen on board.

Ospreys can be flown like an airplane and take off and land like a helicopter, making them useful for aircraft carrier landings as well as for special operators entering austere environments.

The Marine Corps operates hundreds of the aircraft, while the Air Force and Navy own around 50 and 30, respectively. Marine Ospreys are starting to reenter the fray; 10 aircraft from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 268 headed to Hawaii in May in preparation for a training exercise in Australia, while the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit is using them in Sweden as part of Exercise Baltic Operations.

The Navy’s CMV-22 fleet remains sidelined from performing its carrier support mission at sea, service officials said Wednesday. Despite getting the green light to resume regular missions, the services are barred from flying more than 30 minutes from an airfield where they could land in case of an emergency, according to Military.com.

Osprey crews at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, have begun rebuilding their skills in anticipation of returning to normal ops, and other squadrons are getting close to flying again, Air Force Special Operations Command spokesperson Lt. Col. Rebecca Heyse told Air Force Times.

An investigation into the Air Force’s Nov. 29 CV-22 crash is nearing completion, with briefings for families expected in the coming weeks. The military has said that accident was the result of a material failure that hadn’t been seen before on the Osprey.

Ospreys have suffered a string of fatal crashes since the U.S. military introduced them into special operations more than two decades ago, including four mishaps that have killed 20 service members since March 2022. The military grounded the Ospreys in 2022 and again in 2023, after a series of “hard clutch engagements” that occurred when the input quill assembly, which attaches the Osprey’s engine to its proprotor gear box, wore out earlier than expected.

On Wednesday, Chebi and Gary Kurtz, program executive officer for anti-submarine, assault and special mission programs including the Osprey, told lawmakers that a redesigned clutch is expected to begin testing soon.

“We anticipate that we will have a new clutch fielding in the mid-2025 timeframe,” Kurtz said.

V-22 Ospreys barred from full mission capability until ‘mid-2025’: NAVAIR boss
By Michael Marrow and Valerie Insinna
June 12, 2024

WASHINGTON — Frustrated by multiple fatal incidents in recent years, lawmakers today grilled Pentagon officials about the safety of the DoD’s V-22 Osprey fleet, which recently resumed limited flight operations after a deadly November crash prompted a months-long grounding.

Although the tiltrotor aircraft is back in the skies, it’s restricted to flying within 30 minutes of an airfield. And now, a senior official revealed today it likely won’t resume its full mission profile until mid-2025.

“I will not certify the V-22 to return to unrestricted flight operations until I am satisfied that we have sufficiently addressed the issues that may affect the safety of the aircraft,” Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) Commander Vice Adm. Carl Chebi, who offered the mid-2025 timeline, told the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcomittee.

Asked whether that timeline applies to Air Force Ospreys as well, a spokesperson for Air Force Special Operations Command told Breaking Defense, “We will continue to stay synched with the JPO [Joint Program Office] on all flight restrictions.”

In response to safety concerns, Chebi said officials have implemented a “comprehensive review” of the V-22 encompassing the tiltrotor’s tri-service operators — Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy — that is “designed to make a long-term significant improvement in the safety, availability, and affordability of the V-22.” The review began prior to the November crash and is running in parallel to efforts to return the aircraft to full operations, according to Chebi’s written testimony [PDF].

The November crash off Japan that killed eight airmen was just one of several in recent years, though officials have said the mishaps stem from different causes. For example, a fatal March 2022 crash in Norway that killed four Marines was attributed to pilot error. A crash in June 2022 that killed five Marines in California was traced to a mechanical problem known as a hard clutch engagement (HCE) — an issue known for years that later led the Air Force to ground its fleet, though the Navy and Marine Corps did not follow suit at the time.

Three other Marines died when an Osprey crashed in Australia in August 2023, though the root cause of that incident has not been released. The November 2023 crash was caused by “a catastrophic aircraft mechanical failure that had never been seen before in the V-22 fleet,” Chebi testified today.

Officials have been working to mitigate the hard clutch issue by replacing a part known as the input quill assembly, which belongs to the aircraft’s proprotor gearbox where the source of the HCE problem occurs. V-22 program officials are also designing a new clutch that’s expected to be implemented mid-2025, Gary Kurtz, program executive officer for air anti-submarine warfare and special missions programs, testified today. Chebi said there have been no HCE events since mitigation efforts were implemented, though the root cause of the HCE issue has not been formally identified.

Families of victims of the June 2022 crash and others of the separate crash in Australia in August 2023 attended the Osprey hearing today to push officials for greater accountability and to ensure the Osprey fleet is safe. Four of the five families of the June 2022 incident have since filed a lawsuit against the Bell Textron, Boeing and Rolls-Royce industry team that makes the Osprey, alleging the contractors lied about the aircraft’s safety. The companies have not publicly addressed the lawsuit beyond reportedly declining to comment to the media.

Chebi stayed behind after the hearing to answer questions from family members, but after his departure, several said their concerns about the Osprey’s safety record were not satisfied by the officials’ testimonies.

“They don’t have enough information or data. They clearly don’t have answers still on the cause of these mishaps and why the hard clutch engagement is happening and they don’t have a fix for it. So in my mind, if you can’t fix it, you shouldn’t be flying it,” said Alexia Collart, whose son, Marine Corps Cpl. Spencer Collart, was a V-22 crew chief who died in the Australia crash.

Amber Sax, the wife of Marine Corps Capt. John Sax, who died in the California crash, said she asked Chebi about a Marine Corps claim that it could reduce the likelihood of a hard clutch engagement by 99 percent by replacing the input quill assembly in a predetermined timeframe.

“Without a root cause being found, how can you guarantee a 99 percent prevention rate?” said Sax, who is one of the family members involved in the wrongful death lawsuit. “Statistics just are not comforting. I can understand the mathematics behind them but when it’s personal, it goes out the window.”

Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, implored officials to ground the Osprey until the new clutch is implemented, saying, “I don’t believe this aircraft is safe.”

“If another Osprey goes down, we’re done. This program’s done,” he said. “Ground them now. We’ll bite the bullet for the next year or so until we get this clutch figured out. But we’ve already had too much carnage. We’ve already lost too many good men and women.”

Regarding the November 2023 crash, the military is conducting two investigations that are routine for fatal mishaps: one led by a Safety Investigation Board (SIB), whose findings are kept internal to DoD, and another led by a parallel Accident Investigation Board (AIB) that shares its work with the public. Lawmakers on the committee today were particularly exasperated by the Pentagon’s apparent unwillingness to share SIB reports on Osprey crashes with them.

“I don’t see how we can really adequately address this unless we have a look at those safety investigations,” subcommittee Chairman Glenn Grothman, R-Wisc., said in his closing remarks, who additionally chided officials for being unable to answer a “surprising” amount of questions.

Peter Belk, who is performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for readiness, said in an exchange with Grothman that the DoD “remains committed to being transparent in sharing information related to any of these mishaps,” including through command investigations that are shared with Congress “upon request.” However, safety investigations in particular are meant to “maximize” transparency, which requires “safety privilege” for participants, he reasoned.

Addressing families of Osprey crash victims, Grothman said, “I’ll assure you folks that we’re not going to let this matter drop.”