W. Drake

AAN: US military grounds entire fleet of Osprey aircraft The military announced late Wednesday it was grounding all of its Osprey V-22 helicopters, one week after eight Air Force Special Operations Command and Marine Corps service members died in a crash off the coast of Norway. 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. Norway grounded its fleet of 6 Ospreys after the crash. Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, head of Naval Air Systems 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, Air Force Special Operations Command said it was grounding all Ospreys. The command is responsible for the Air Forces variants of the aircraft. The Navy 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 Norway crash and made recommendations to allow the Air Force to return to operations.

AAN: Russian planes conducted a practice attack on a radar facility in Norway. A flight of Russian ground attack in late 2023 flew a mock strike on a Norwegian radar installation, Vice Admiral. Nils Andreas Stensønes, the head of Norway's intelligence service, revealed today. According to Stensønes, the Su-25 subsonic attack aircraft took off from the Kola Peninsula's Monchegorsk air base, crossed the Barents Sea, turned, and formed an attack formation before swooping down on the Norwegian town of Vardø. A local news source said, "Vardø is a fishing town on a small island in the Barents Sea, but its proximity to Russia's heavily militarized Kola Peninsula makes it a perfect location for radar surveillance." For many years, the Globus-II radar has caused friction in the relations between Moscow and Oslo. The news source went on, "Objects in space are officially observed by the radar." It is also thought to be quite competent in keeping track of and compiling a database of Russian ballistic missile signatures. “The radars in Vardø are operated by the Norwegian Intelligence Service.” Russia frequently conducts mock air and commando raids, both as practice for war-time operations and as a form of intimidation targeting rival states. According to a Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (NDRE) expert, the simulated attack in 2023 was "a sophisticated and well-planned Russian signal." Russian forces in July 2018 daringly simulated an assault on Gogland Island in the Finland Sea just south of Sweden. The island is Russian territory. “The difficulty of landing on the coast of the island was the unpreparedness of the site and the choppy wind that is characteristic of all the islands of the Gulf of Finland,” the Kremlin stated. “The special forces left the side of the Mi-8AMTSH helicopter at an altitude of 2,500 meters three kilometers from the island.” The commandos used satellite navigation to steer themselves to the landing zone, the Russian statement continued. “After landing, the scouts disguised the parachutes and advanced into the interior of the island.” Shortly before the island raid and around the same time as the mock attack on Vardø, 17 Russian warplanes buzzed the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Duncan in the Black Sea. A year earlier in early 2017, nine Russian warplanes conducted another raid targeting Vardø. Three months later in 2017, 12 Russian planes simulated attack runs on NATO vessels exercising in Norwegian waters off Tromsø.