Near mid-air collision and safety violations led to fatal crash of Marine Corps Osprey in Australia

WASHINGTON — An Osprey crash in Australia that three marines killed last August was caused by multiple pilot errors during a near-collision in mid-air, a military investigation has found. The investigation also found that squadron leadership “allowed for a culture that disregarded the safety of the flight.”

Two Marines were killed in the Aug. 27 crash, pilots Capt. Eleanor V. LeBeau, 29, and Maj. Tobin J. Lewis, 37. A third Marine, crew chief Corporal Spencer R. Collart, 21, was killed when he “heroically entered the burning cockpit of the aircraft in an attempt to rescue the trapped pilots,” investigators said in a report released Friday night.

The crash was one of four fatal accidents in the past two years that have brought renewed attention from Congress to the V-22 Osprey, which can fly as both an airplane and a helicopter. The Osprey is a vital tool in special operations and combat missions, but it is considered one of the most complex aircraft to fly and maintain, and it has a difficult accident historyThe Osprey is currently undergoing a number of assessments to determine whether it is suitable for future military use.

The accident in Australia exposed significant safety issues within the squadron. Investigators recommended disciplinary action, including possible court-martial charges against a senior squadron member and possible administrative action against the squadron’s former commander, Lt. Col. Joe Whitefield, who they said “permitted a culture that disregarded the safety of flight procedures.”

A senior maintenance officer, who was not named, was found guilty of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice for neglect of duty and improperly generating and signing a form detailing the aircraft’s weight and cargo after the crash. Lewis, the commander of the downed Osprey aircraft, was supposed to have reviewed that information before the flight. Investigators recommended that the maintenance officer undergo administrative or judicial proceedings.

Given the severity of the safety concerns, investigators advised all Marine Corps Osprey squadrons to temporarily pause flight operations, known as a standdown, to investigate the accident.

It is the second recent accident involving a Marine Corps Osprey in which critical flight and voice data was lost because the recorder was destroyed in a post-crash fire. After a 2022 Osprey crash in California that killed five Marines, investigators recommended replacing all flight data recorders on the Marine Corps’ MV-22B Osprey with a version that could withstand high temperatures and fire and survive a crash. A request for comment from the Marine Corps about whether the replacements were being made was not immediately returned.

The Hawaii-based squadron was operating at a high tempo on its overseas Australian deployment and may have been overstretched. In the three weeks before the fatal crash, the squadron experienced two minor accidents, including one that was also a near miss that was also related to weight and loading issues, which should have been warning signs, investigators found.

That the two previous accidents failed to prompt Whitefield, the former commander, to conduct a standdown to address larger safety concerns is “deeply concerning and directly contributed to the failure to implement required flight safety measures and weight and power procedures” on Aug. 27, investigators found.

On the day of the crash, Lewis was responsible for simultaneously serving as the in-flight instructor for the pilot flying the lead aircraft and also as the aircraft commander on his own Osprey during a complex, multinational exercise. But investigators found that Lewis did not attend the mission planning briefings that described the flight, and he did not review the aircraft’s payloads, maintenance history or risk assessment before taking off, leaving him unaware of the flight, investigators found.

Investigators found that both Ospreys had burned 2,000 pounds more fuel than planned and that they had only used estimates of how much each of the troops in the back would weigh. The weight of an aircraft plays a critical role in how pilots can operate it safely.

The Osprey that crashed also had incomplete maintenance, but none of the squadron leaders stopped the plane from taking off. Although the outstanding maintenance tasks were not identified as factors in the crash, “the aircraft ultimately should not have been certified as safe for flight,” investigators found.

A fourth crew member was seriously injured in the crash, which occurred as the two Ospreys flew low for a final landing during the multinational training exercise.

In the final minutes of the flight, the lead Osprey reduced power without notifying the pursuing Osprey, and the pursuing Osprey did not notice the rapidly shrinking distance between the two aircraft in time, investigators found. The pursuing Osprey responded with a steep bank to avoid a mid-air collision, and then quickly entered two additional steep banks, putting the aircraft in a position where it was exposed to a 20-knot tailwind.

The aircraft commander did not assess the seriousness of the situation and did not take over flight controls until it was too late, at which point the Osprey flying behind him had its tilted rotors and power settings unable to perform the manoeuvres with the weight of the aircraft. The aircraft quickly stalled, was beyond saving and crashed nose down.

There were a total of 23 Marines on board the crashed plane. The 19 troops in the back, who were being flown to a drop-off point for the military exercise, all survived.