Osprey faces fresh scrutiny after latest crash off Japanese coast

A U.S. Air Force Osprey tiltrotor aircraft crashed Wednesday during what U.S. officials said was a “routine training mission” off the coast of Japan, the latest in a string of deadly mishaps involving the aviation hybrid that can take off and land like a helicopter but fly like an airplane.

The crash killed at least one of the six U.S. crew members believed to be on board, the Japanese coast guard told the Associated Press, and the status of the other crew members was not immediately known.

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki told reporters Wednesday that he would ask the U.S. military to suspend all Osprey flights in Japan as the crash was being investigated.

The Osprey program has been plagued with problems, both financial and mechanical, since it first rolled off the assembly line and was shipped to the Marine Corps, which remains its primary customer. It has a sticker price of more than $70 million per helicopter.

However, the highest cost may be more than 50 service members who have died since June 1991 after dozens of Osprey aviation incidents ranging from a full crash to a hard landing on an airstrip.

According to Japan’s Kyodo News, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida asked officials to consider the possibility of asking the U.S. military to ground its Ospreys as the investigation proceeds.

“It is an issue we should think about after confirming what has actually happened,” Mr. Kishida told reporters.

Despite the Osprey having a long history of mechanical failures, it will likely take a year or more before Air Force investigators determine the cause of Wednesday’s crash, said Timothy Loranger, a former Marine Corps aircraft mechanic and private pilot turned lawyer.

“Right now, the best information we have is from the witness who reported seeing fire coming from an engine, and the aircraft flipping upside down before the crash,” Mr. Loranger told The Washington Times. “That points to mechanical failure as a primary suspect in this crash.

He is representing the widows of Marines who were killed in June 2022 when their MV-22B Osprey crashed about 115 miles east of San Diego. Air Force investigators will likely want to know whether Wednesday’s crash was the result of issues in the Osprey’s gearbox, where the clutch slips and causes engine failure, Mr. Loranger said.

While the Marines have been the primary customer for the Osprey, the Air Force has also deployed a number of the aircraft. The CV-22B Osprey that went down Wednesday was assigned to the Air Force’s 353rd Special Operations Wing at Yokota Air Base, about 25 miles west of Tokyo.

An eyewitness told Japan’s NHK network that the Osprey appeared to roll over in mid-flight before suddenly descending towards the water. Before Wednesday’s incident, the most recent fatal Osprey crash happened in August 2023, when three Marines died after their V-22 went down during maneuvers in Australia.

“With every crash, questions come up about why Ospreys are still flying. The answer is simple: It’s a workhouse and is needed,” Mr Loranger said. “Its primary function is to carry troops and equipment into the battlefield, where having an aircraft with vertical takeoff capability is an asset.”

The deadliest crash happened on April 8, 2022, when 19 Marines were killed when their V-22 Osprey went down during a night training exercise at a regional airport near Tucson, Ariz.

“The accident was attributed to a little-understood flight phenomenon called vortex ring state, or VRS, in which a helicopter descending rapidly at low forward speed drops into its own turbulence,” according to a Wired magazine report. “Its rotors lose their grip on the air, and the bird drops out of the sky.”

All five Marines aboard an MV-22B Osprey died in August 2022 when it crashed in the desert about 150 miles west of San Diego, California. With the Osprey, the Pentagon hoped to create a single aircraft that could accomplish a variety of missions, Mr. Loranger said.

“It’s new in a lot of ways and there are a lot of designing and engineering problems still being resolved,” he said. “It’s still so new that they never really figured out if they have all the kinks worked out of it.”