The Air Force has begun flying some of its CV-22 Ospreys again to test the troubled plane’s airworthiness. This is a notable move as the service works to return the entire fleet to full operational capability following a fatal crash late last year.
It is the last service to put its Ospreys back in the air after the Nov. 29 crash off the coast of Japan that killed eight pilots and triggered a military-wide grounding of the plane. The Pentagon has cleared all services to begin flying the Osprey again in March, and several Air Force aircraft have undergone tests and evaluations.
“Once each aircraft is cleared, our crew will begin flight operations immediately,” Lt. Col. Rebecca Heyse, an Air Force Special Operations Command spokeswoman, told Military.com on Monday. “To date, several aircraft have conducted functional test flights, the first step towards resuming flight operations.”
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In December, the V-22 Joint Program Office — part of Naval Air Systems Command — grounded the aircraft, which is flown by the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy. In March, the same office, when lifting the flight ban, admitted that a new mechanical defect had led to the crash. Officials declined to provide specific details about what went wrong and why they were confident about getting the Ospreys back in the air.
“We are very confident that we understand what component failed and how it failed,” Marine Corps Col. Brian Taylor, the program manager for the V-22 program, told reporters in March.
“I think we’re still working on the ‘why,'” he added, noting that “this is the first time this particular component has failed in this way.”
Amid this uncertainty, the Air Force has taken a phased and slow approach to getting its CV-22s back in the air. Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, the head of Air Force Special Operations Command, convened a safety investigation board and an accident investigation board and conducted a comprehensive review of the Air Force’s entire CV-22 force after the crash.
Heyse told Military.com that the safety investigation board’s work has been completed, while the accident investigation board and other reviews are still ongoing.
“The AFSOC CV-22 fleet is conducting the deliberate return-to-flight process,” Heyse said. “This process includes simulator training for our CV-22 aircrew, maintenance inspections of our CV-22 aircraft, and a review of each aircraft’s maintenance records as directed by the Joint Program Office.”
In contrast, the Marine Corps began sending its Ospreys back into the air on March 14, less than a week after the ban was lifted. Similarly, the Navy told Military.com in late March that it had begun flying some of its Ospreys in the United States again.
The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, which also flies the Osprey, resumed flights in March, according to a report in the Japan Times.
The November crash is just the latest problem for the Air Force’s Ospreys. In August 2022, the service briefly grounded its V-22 fleet after a series of harsh clutch interventions that worried executives.
The hard clutch problem is an ongoing problem with the Osprey’s complex clutch system, which is designed to allow an engine to fly the aircraft in the event of engine failure. However, in some cases these couplings have failed.
Military.com reported on one such mishap involving an Air Force Osprey that could have been fatal in 2017.
Related: Air Force Ospreys in Japan remain grounded after fatal crash even as Marines return to air