WASHINGTON — The V-22 Osprey that crashed off the coast of Japan last November, the plane’s safety record has come under renewed scrutiny – but this time without one of its most vocal defenders.
Air Force Maj. Jeff Hoernemann had piloted the Osprey for more than a decade. Every time a new accident or incident occurred, you could find him online, defending the fighter plane via his Reddit account, “UR_WRONG_ABOUT_V22.”
In November him and seven others were killed when their Air Force Special Operations Command CV-22B Osprey crashed off the coast of Japan.
The crash in Japan has resonated deeply within the Osprey community and has left grieving families with the need to maintain a delicate balance. They know the crew was passionate about the Osprey because it is fast and performs like no other aircraft in the fleet. But the crashes keep happening, and none of them can bear the idea of another family having to deal with this kind of grief.
“Would Jeff want it to stay on the ground forever? No, he absolutely wouldn’t do that,” his mother, Cathy Hoernemann, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But I can’t sit on my hands and wait for the next story of another crash, because I feel in my heart that if things continue like this, it’s just a matter of time, and it’s going to happen again, and then again. family will be destroyed.”
On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee will hold a hearing on the safety of the Osprey and whether there is adequate Pentagon oversight of the program. It is the first of several congressional reviews and investigations following the November crash.
The V-22 Osprey is first-generation tiltrotor technology for the U.S. military, allowing operators to quickly fly long distances like an airplane and then tilt the massive rotors and engines to land on target like a helicopter. It has been in design since the 1980s, but only began military operations in 2007.
There are about 400 Ospreys in the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force, at a cost of about $80 million each, and manufacturers Bell Flight and Boeing are making no more. Bell is working on a next-generation tiltrotor aircraft that features substantial design changes, including engines that do not rotate to a vertical position, an aspect of the Osprey that has been a focal point in previous accidents.
In the months since the crash in Japan, there has been a sense that this accident marked a major change in confidence in the Osprey. It also revealed an uneven division among the services over the Osprey’s role in the advancement of their fleets. After being grounded for months following the November accident, the Marine Corps moved aggressively to get its Ospreys back in the air. The Air Force has taken a slower, more cautious approach — and its leadership is already talking publicly about finding another aircraft to carry out its special operations mission in the future. The Navy said the Ospreys have also not returned to their mission of flying passengers to aircraft carriers, and at a Senate hearing in May, a senior Navy acquisition official said each variant remains under flight restrictions.
The Marine Corps, which has purchased hundreds of Ospreys to replace the CH-46 helicopter, plans to keep the aircraft in the fleet until at least 2050. Families who spoke to the AP said if the Osprey keeps flying, they want Bell Flight. Boeing and the Pentagon’s joint V-22 program office to make the design changes needed to make the aircraft safe.
They tried through lawsuits and media attention, and through North Carolina’s late and outspoken Republican Rep. Walter Jones, who, through two decades of hearings and investigations and until his death in 2019, focused attention on the challenges of program did not want to fade away.
Despite periodic repairs, V-22 components wear out faster than expected or fail in unexpected ways, creating flight hazards. Rather than committing to a design overhaul, the answer so far has been to train Osprey pilots to work around the problems.
“I believe that continuing to fly under the circumstances is a high risk, but necessary because the services are completely dependent on the V-22,” said Rex Rivolo, a former program evaluator of the Osprey program, who will be responsible for the upcoming period has raised concerns about the safety of the aircraft. past two decades.
Trish Brow’s husband, Lt. Col. John Brow, was killed in one of the Osprey’s first major accidents, an April 2000 crash in Marana, Arizona, that killed 19 Marines.
In the hazy months that followed, a fellow Osprey pilot, Lt. Col. Keith Sweaney, contacted her.
“He told me they were making changes to the descent rate, that it would be safer for them to continue,” Brow said.
Sweaney died not long after, in a North Carolina Osprey crash in December 2000 that killed him and three other Marines.
“When he crashed, it was shocking,” Brow said.
After the Marana crash, Brow and Connie Gruber, whose husband, Marine Corps Major Brooks Gruber, was killed in the same accident, settled one of the first Osprey family lawsuits with Bell and Boeing for an undisclosed amount.
Since then, there have been ten more fatal Osprey accidents and other crashes in which the aircraft was destroyed but everyone on board lived.
“Every time something like this happens, it’s a gut punch. Why? Just because you think, ‘Oh God, here it comes again,’” Brow said. “You guys just want to shake your heads and say, ‘Can’t you do it right?’ ”
Last month four more families has filed a new lawsuit against Bell, Boeing and Osprey’s engine manufacturer, Rolls Royce. The lawsuit stems from a 2022 crash in Glamis, California, killing five Marines and accusing the manufacturers of failing to meet safety standards and address known component defects that contributed to the accident.
When an Osprey crash would occur, Amber Sax turned to her husband, Osprey pilot and Marine Corps Captain John Sax, for understanding of what had happened and reassurance from him about its safety.
She privately worried about the risks. But she knew her husband enjoyed flying the Osprey so much that he turned down a Marine Corps fighter ticket to get the MV-22 instead.
When news of the Glamis accident spread, Amber was at home pregnant with their second child.
“I never, ever had a conversation with John about, ‘I don’t want you to fly this, I don’t want you to do this anymore.’ Let’s go out. What are our options?’ I never said that to him,” Sax said. “But when I was waiting for the knock on the door, and I didn’t know if it was him or not, I just thought: as soon as he comes home, I’ll tell him: I don’t think I can do it. You’ll have to guide me through this. Are you going to keep flying this plane?’
Sax was one of five Marines killed, and his wife is among those now filing charges.
Both Boeing and Bell declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.
Cathy Hoernemann learned about her son’s Reddit account at his funeral, when fellow Osprey pilots shared stories of how much they had loved him. She submitted a statement to the subcommittee regarding her concerns about the Osprey.
Every fatal crash occurs because something went wrong during the flight, not because of enemy fire, which hit hard, she said.
“I have decided that if I want to honor my son and not let this pass as just another bad accident, I cannot look these young men and women in the eye and wait for another accident,” Hoernemann said.
“These men and women get on these planes every day and trust, like Jeff, that you’re going to go home and it will work the way it’s supposed to. It should be safe,” she said, her voice catching. “It has to be safe.”