WASHINGTON (AP) — The military has ordered new safety guidelines for a key part in all Osprey aircraft after a recent accident revealed the same problem that caused a fatal crash in Japan last year.
During a Nov. 20 flight involving a CV-22B Osprey in New Mexico, the crew received warnings that the metal gears inside the aircraft’s transmission, known as the proprotor gearbox, were in trouble.
They lost an engine, but due to lessons learned from the crash in Japan that killed eight service members, the Air Force Special Operations Command crew in New Mexico quickly got the aircraft on the ground and survived.
Investigators opened up the failed and badly damaged transmission from last month’s flight, finding the same type of metal weaknesses — called inclusions — that led to gears breaking apart in a similar way in the Japan crash in November 2023.
Following the New Mexico near-crash, all the military services grounded their Ospreys, which can fly both like a helicopter and an airplane, for the second time this year. The Marines, however, put their Ospreys back in the air days later.