The Air Force and Navy will begin to let their V-22 Osprey fleets fly once more in the coming weeks after key parts of their engines are individually checked on each aircraft. The two grounded their tiltrotor planes Dec. 6 after a mechanical mishap with an Air Force Osprey in New Mexico.
Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, issued a bulletin Thursday clearing the service’s CV-22s back into the air after inspections. An Air Force Special Operations Command spokesperson told Task & Purpose its fleet would do the same.
The Marine Corps, which flies about five times as many Ospreys as the Navy and Air Force combined, also grounded its MV-22s on Dec. 6, but began flying again on Dec. 10. A Marine spokesperson told Task & Purpose Friday that “a subset of MV-22 Ospreys” in its fleet will now fly with “risk mitigating controls” in response to the NAVAIR bulletin.
Osprey transmissions either caused or are suspected to be the cause of a number of inflight accidents with the aircraft including one in 2023 near Yakshima, Japan that killed eight Air Force special operations troops and a 2022 California crash that killed five Marines.
“Based on engineering analysis, on December 20, 2024, NAVAIR issued a fleet bulletin directing the inspection of V-22 Osprey to verify the flight hours on each Proprotor Gearbox (PRGB) prior to an aircraft’s next flight,” a Navy announcement said. “Aircraft with PRGBs that currently meet or exceed a predetermined flight-hour threshold will resume flights in accordance with controls instituted in the March 2024 interim flight clearance (IFC).”
AFSOC released a similar statement confirming that its Ospreys would also undergo the inspection and return to flight.
“AFSOC has resumed flight operations of the CV-22B Osprey in accordance with NAVAIR fleet bulletin and interim flight clearance,” a spokesperson for the command told Task & Purpose in an email. “We expect minimal impact to pilot proficiency and operational readiness.”
Both the Navy and Air Force Special Operations Command grounded their Osprey fleet on Dec. 6 after an Osprey mishap at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico was also traced to a gearbox issue.
“While performing a local training mission, a CV-22 Osprey from Cannon AFB, N.M. made a precautionary landing Nov 20, 2024,” an Air Force statement released at the time said. “There were four personnel on board and no injuries were reported nor known damage to the aircraft because of the landing.”
The Marines fly about 340 Ospreys, while AFSOC flies close to 50. The Navy plans to have roughly 40 Ospreys, which the service began taking delivery of in 2021. Japan is the only non-U.S. operator of the cargo tiltrotor plane, with less than 20.