Washington | The US Army announced on Wednesday that it had banned its Osprey aircraft from flying as a precautionary measure after several fatal accidents, the most recent of which was the killing of eight American soldiers in Japan at the end of November.
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A statement said that the Commander of the Air Force Special Operations Command “decided the operational halt” of these military aircraft, which can take off and land vertically like a helicopter and fly like an airplane.
Another Navy statement said the decision also applies to its aircraft “as a precautionary measure.”
The text notes that the Air Force’s decision was made to “reduce risk while the investigation continues” into the causes of the fatal accident off the coast of southwestern Japan on November 29.
“If the initial elements of the investigation indicate that a material defect caused the accident, the underlying cause of that defect is not yet known,” the Air Force Special Operations Command news release said.
He adds that grounding these planes, also called V-22s, “will provide time and space to conduct a full investigation to determine the causes and develop recommendations so the Army’s CV-22 fleet can fly again.”
Following the incident on November 29, Japan (the only foreign country to have purchased it) suspended flights of its Osprey aircraft and asked the US military to do the same on Japanese soil, whose population views these devices dimly.
Several recent accidents, in addition to the one off Yakushima Island, have highlighted questions about the reliability of this tilt-rotor aircraft resulting from a collaboration between aircraft manufacturer Boeing and helicopter specialist Bell.
In late August, three US Marines were killed in an Osprey crash in northern Australia, and by 2022, four more had died in Norway when their CV-22 crashed during NATO air force exercises.
An American vehicle of the same type also crashed into the sea in 2017 after colliding with the stern of a ship as part of American-Australian military maneuvers, killing three people.
At the end of 2016, the United States suspended its aircraft flights to Japan for a few days after an emergency landing off the coast of Okinawa and strong local protests.
In April 2000, 19 Marines were killed when an Osprey plane crashed in Arizona (southwestern United States).
More than 400 devices have been manufactured in total, according to Bell’s website, which specifies that they can fly at speeds of up to 500 kilometers per hour.
