Photo: USAF
Upon the soil of the U.S.'s long-time allies in Australia, the lives of three American Marines were cut tragically short when a Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport aircraft crashed on the remote Melville Island roughly 60 km (37.3 mi) from the City of Darwin on Aug 27th. The aircraft was participating in a joint American and Australian training exercise dubbed the Predators Run 2023 at the time of the incident. An event also attended by service members from Indonesia, the Philippines, and East Timor.
The V-22 in question was carrying 23 U.S. Marines at the time of the incident. Five were air-lifted to a nearby hospital with serious injuries, while a further three died at the scene. The names of the injured and the deceased have yet to be made public, and the international investigation into the cause of the accident is ongoing as of the evening of the incident. As a result of the tragedy that morning, criticisms levied against the V-22 and its considerable albatross production contract won't be going away any time soon.
"The initial reports suggest that the incident involves just U.S. defense force personnel," explained Anthony Albanese, Australia's current Prime Minister. "Our focus as a government and as the Department of Defense is very much on incident response and on making sure that every support and assistance is given at this difficult time." The V-22 might have remained accident-free for the duration of 2023 up to this point, but this most recent accident is a stark reminder of just how many lives have been lost behind the stick and in the cargo hold of this uber-complex, tilt-rotor Marine aircraft.
Loss-of-hull incidents involving the V-22 airframe stretch all the way back to 1991, a time when the Osprey had only recently been fashioned from the blueprints of the Bell XV-15 prototype tilt-rotor. Since then, a total of 15 hull loss incidents have occurred while flying V-22s. In total, this accounts for 54 U.S. Marines and other personnel. Everything from pilot error to engine and hydraulic failures have been attributed as reasons why these accidents continue to take place. In its most recent incident before 2023, a 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing V-22 crashed over southern California. Early reports erroneously noted that nuclear material was suspected of being on board.
Among the deceased in this incident was Captain John J. Sax, the son of the former all-star second baseman of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Steve Sax. When combined with seemingly endless negative press related not just to a less-than-stellar safety record but also a seemingly endless wave of production cost overruns, the V-22 Osprey is quickly becoming one of the most polarizing and controversial military aircraft in the Pentagon's current arsenal. Clever tilt-rotor doohickeys be darned.
"The initial reports suggest that the incident involves just U.S. defense force personnel," explained Anthony Albanese, Australia's current Prime Minister. "Our focus as a government and as the Department of Defense is very much on incident response and on making sure that every support and assistance is given at this difficult time." The V-22 might have remained accident-free for the duration of 2023 up to this point, but this most recent accident is a stark reminder of just how many lives have been lost behind the stick and in the cargo hold of this uber-complex, tilt-rotor Marine aircraft.
Loss-of-hull incidents involving the V-22 airframe stretch all the way back to 1991, a time when the Osprey had only recently been fashioned from the blueprints of the Bell XV-15 prototype tilt-rotor. Since then, a total of 15 hull loss incidents have occurred while flying V-22s. In total, this accounts for 54 U.S. Marines and other personnel. Everything from pilot error to engine and hydraulic failures have been attributed as reasons why these accidents continue to take place. In its most recent incident before 2023, a 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing V-22 crashed over southern California. Early reports erroneously noted that nuclear material was suspected of being on board.
Among the deceased in this incident was Captain John J. Sax, the son of the former all-star second baseman of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Steve Sax. When combined with seemingly endless negative press related not just to a less-than-stellar safety record but also a seemingly endless wave of production cost overruns, the V-22 Osprey is quickly becoming one of the most polarizing and controversial military aircraft in the Pentagon's current arsenal. Clever tilt-rotor doohickeys be darned.
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