The army said in a statement that the commander of the Air Force’s Special Operations Command “ordered the operational halt” of these military aircraft, which can take off and land vertically like a helicopter and fly horizontally like an ordinary plane.
The statement explained that the decision was taken “to reduce risks while the investigation continues” into the causes of the last fatal accident involving an aircraft of this type on November 29 in southwestern Japan, in which 8 American soldiers were killed.
For its part, the US Navy said in a second statement that this decision will also apply as a “precautionary measure” to its Osprey aircraft, also called CV-22.
In its statement, the Air Force explained that “if the first elements of the investigation indicate that a material defect caused the accident, the underlying cause of this defect is not yet known.”
He added that grounding these aircraft “will provide the time and space necessary to conduct a full investigation to determine the causes and develop recommendations so that the Air Force’s CV-22 fleet can fly again.”
There have been many questions about the safety of this type of aircraft after the numerous accidents it has been exposed to over the past years.
On November 29, an Osprey belonging to the US Air Force crashed into the sea near Yakushima Island in southern Japan, killing all 8 soldiers on board, all of them Americans.
At that time, this plane was performing a “routine training mission.”
This accident came just weeks after another Osprey military plane crashed in northern Australia in August, killing 3 US Marines.
In 2022, 4 people died in Norway on board an Osprey that crashed during NATO training.
Japan has suspended flights of its Osprey aircraft since Wednesday’s accident and has asked the US military to do the same on Japanese soil, as a precautionary measure.
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