Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images
A US Navy Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey flies over the USS Mesa Verde during the major maritime maneuver “Northern Coasts 23” in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Latvia in this 2023 file photo.
CNN
—
The US military has lifted the grounding guidance for the military’s V-22 Osprey fleet, roughly three months after the entire fleet was grounded following a deadly Air Force Special Operations crash off the coast of Japan. The Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy are expected to begin flying their V-22 variants in a phased approach over the next several weeks.
The military-wide grounding of V-22 aircraft in December came a week after eight airmen were killed when their CV-22 crashed off the coast of Yakushima Island, Japan — as well as a number of other deadly crashes over the last few years. Military officials said in a series of briefings on Wednesday that they had confidence in returning the Ospreys to the air after an Air Force investigation identified the “materiel failure” responsible for the crash.
“There is nothing more important to me than safety of our air commandos and the joint force in which we support. … I have high confidence that the protocols we’re putting in place will avoid a catastrophic event like this happening again in the future,” Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, told reporters. “But I never say things with a finality, because there is an inherent risk of what we do in military operations.”
Bauernfeind said the Accent Investigation Board — which investigates all of the facts and circumstances around an accident and produces a publicly releasable report outlining the details — is still ongoing.
Col. Brian Taylor, the program manager of the Naval Air Systems Command V-22 joint program office, told reporters Wednesday that while NAVAIR was rescinding its grounding guidance for the V-22 and implementing various maintenance and procedural changes to mitigate any further issues, it was up to each service to determine how that guidance will be implemented for their units.
The grounding “has hurt the services,” Taylor said, but added there was “not any sort of demand from the services to get the aircraft back into play.”
In a series of briefings to reporters on Wednesday, officials expressed confidence that the Osprey would be safe to fly in but provided few specifics as to what failed in the deadly November CV-22 crash. Each of the service representatives who briefed reporters explained that their service would be taking a phased approach to getting their V-22 variants up and running again, focusing on getting pilots and crews back to the level of proficiency they had before the grounding.
Taylor told reporters the November crash was due to an “unprecedented” component failure — “the first time that we’ve seen this particular component fail in this way,” he said — though he declined to say which component it was, or how it failed. He also said the investigation of “the why” is still ongoing.
It was unclear what, if any, operation limitations NAVAIR was imposing on the military’s fleet of V-22s — for example, limitations on the speed or duration at which they can be flown. Asked about potential…
This article was originally published by a amp.cnn.com . Read the Original article here. .