By C. Todd Lopez , DOD News
On Tuesday, a CV-22A Osprey Aircraft assigned to the Air Force’s 353rd Special Operations Wing was involved in an aviation mishap off the shore of Yakushima Island, Japan.
There were eight airmen on board. Search and rescue operations are now underway to locate both the aircrew and their aircraft.
The Osprey aircraft is based out of Yokota Air Base, Japan, in Tokyo, and was performing a routine training mission off the shore of Yakushima Island — about 630 miles southwest of Tokyo.
“Emergency personnel remain on scene conducting search and rescue operations,” Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said during a press briefing today. “The cause of this incident is currently under investigation. Our thoughts are with the unit and their families. And we’d like to thank the government of Japan and the Japanese Coast Guard for all their assistance.”
Singh said that U.S-owned Ospreys in Japan continue to operate while search and rescue operations continue and an investigation into the mishap remains ongoing.
“As of right now, we are still continuing to operate the Osprey aircraft,” Singh said. “We have a commitment to safety. There is an investigation that is currently determining and looking into what exactly happened with this aircraft and the mishap. Should that investigation yield [any] results that require the department to change anything about the Osprey or to take additional steps, we will certainly do that.”
Right now, she said, the immediate focus of the department is on the rescue efforts for the eight missing airmen.
In response to the aviation mishap, officials at Yokota Air Base have set up an “Emergency Family Assistance Center,” to support families of Airmen who were on the aircraft and others at the installation who were affected by the aircraft mishap.
The EFAC will, among other things, provide a central gathering point for those affected by the mishap to receive counseling, assistance and available information.
Air Force Special Operations Command operates a fleet out around 50 Ospreys, including six based at Yokota.
In a statement, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said it received reports of an American Osprey crashing in the ocean near Yakushima at around 2:50 p.m. local time, and dispatched aircraft and ships to conduct a search and rescue operation.
According to the Associated Press, Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki told reporters that he would ask the U.S. military to suspend all Osprey flights in Japan.
The Osprey, also used by the Marine Corps and Navy, is famed for its tilt-rotors, which allow it to take off and land like a helicopter, then move its rotors and fly like an airplane. However, it has also developed a reputation for safety incidents.
Most recently in August, three Marines were killed when their Osprey crashed in Australia. In 2022, two separate crashes in San Diego and Norway resulted in the deaths of nine Marines.
The Air Force has only recorded one fatal CV-22 mishap, in 2010.
However, USAF Ospreys have also had issues. AFSOC temporarily grounded the tilt-rotor aircraft in 2022 over safety concerns related to two incidents of “hard clutch engagements” within a few weeks of each other—a slipping clutch caused a fail-safe feature in the system to transfer power from one engine to the other, as if the first engine was no longer engaged. However, because the clutch was only slipping, and not disengaged, it was suddenly re-engaging, generating enormous spikes in torque.
Such incidents result in “kind of a Christmas tree of lights, caution lights, in the cockpit, and some pretty squirrely flight control inputs,” then-AFSOC commander Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife said at an AFA Warfighters in Action event in September 2022.
Eventually, the V-22 Joint Program Office said it was imposing flight-hour limits on V-22 input quill assemblies—part of the prop rotor transmission, which includes the gearbox and clutch, and transmits power from the engine to the Osprey’s massive propellers.
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