Flying The Osprey Is Not Dangerous, Just Different: Veteran Pilots

In the last few weeks the Air Force and the Marines have officially blamed pilot errors for two Osprey crashes. Given the plane’s dark past and the continuing controversies about whether it’s a safe aircraft I commissioned our regular contributor Richard Whittle, author of “The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey,”…

Marines Find Pilot Errors Caused Fatal V-22 Morocco Crash; Japan Vice Minister Briefed: EXCLUSIVE

WASHINGTON: A Marine Corps investigation confirms that, as Breaking Defense reported July 9, the pilot at the controls of an MV-22B Osprey that crashed April 11 in Morocco, killing two crew chiefs aboard, violated flight manual procedures and committed other errors that contributed to the accident. Breaking Defense has obtained a redacted summary of a…

Japanese Vice Defense Minister To Take Next Step In Dance Of The Osprey; Briefing On Moroccan Crash

WASHINGTON: Japan’s vice defense minister, Hideo Jinpu, is to visit the Pentagon tomorrow to get a detailed briefing on the April 11 crash in Morocco of a Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey that killed two Marines. Jinpu’s visit is the next step in a kabuki dance that began a few weeks ago in response to Japanese…

Marines Peg ‘Bad Flying’ As Cause of April V-22 Crash in Morocco

An April 11 MV-22B Osprey crash in Morocco occurred because the pilot committed a fundamental flying error which investigators have found was rendered irreversible by a tailwind neither he nor a second pilot in the cockpit noticed, Breaking Defense has confirmed. The Defense Department announced June 29 that the Marine Corps had ruled out any…

V-22s Cleared For Okinawa And Heads To UK Air Shows

The Pentagon and the Japanese government announced early Friday that a dozen Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys are being shipped to Japan for deployment on Okinawa but the planes won’t fly until investigations into two recent crashes of the tiltrotor troop transport are complete. The announcement – issued the same day four MV-22s were scheduled to…