AAN: US military grounds entire fleet of Osprey aircraft

[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.