Marines Ground Osprey Fleet After Crash Kills Four

The future of the military’s V-22 Osprey aircraft was put on hold Tuesday after a second crash in eight months killed four Marines, including the controversial tilt-rotor plane’s most experienced pilot.

The Marine Corps grounded its eight remaining Ospreys and asked the Navy to delay a decision on procuring more of the $43-million aircraft while a military accident board investigates the crash.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, meanwhile, said that he will name a special panel to review the entire Osprey program. The aircraft, which takes off and lands like a helicopter and flies like an airplane, is intended to play a key role in Marine combat plans.

The Osprey, named for a diving bird that preys on fish, is built by a joint venture of Bell Helicopter and Boeing in Fort Worth and Ridley Park, Pa.

With twice the capacity and range of conventional helicopters, it can carry 24 people and 15,000-pound cargo loads for a distance of 2,000 miles.

The Osprey can cruise at more than 325 mph at altitudes above 22,000 feet. It can even be used to drop paratroops. And it doesn’t need a runway to land.

However, because it is a hybrid of airplane and helicopter, the Osprey is technologically complex and relies on sophisticated computer technology for critical flight maneuvers.

Defense analysts said that they doubt the Osprey--conceived about 20 years ago--will be scrapped. But they said delays in the program appear inevitable and that a redesign is not out of the question.

A recent Pentagon report cited serious reliability and maintenance problems with the Osprey and questioned whether it is better than the nearly 40-year-old helicopters the Marines now use to transport troops and equipment. The Marine Corps has ordered 360 Ospreys, the Air Force 50 and the Navy 48.

“The Marine Corps is so committed to the program that I’m not sure it can function without it,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank in Arlington, Va. “They have rewritten their doctrine to have a tilt-rotor at the center of operations and, if they don’t have this aircraft, they will have to completely rethink that.”

Preliminary information from the Monday night crash in North Carolina indicated that the Osprey pancaked on its belly into the earth before catching fire, said Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle, deputy Marine Corps commandant for aviation. It was returning to base at the Marines’ New River air station after a routine night training mission to practice instrument landings and takeoffs.

A pancake-type crash would be consistent with an aircraft that dropped because it lost lift and stalled, but McCorkle said it is too early to tell what might have caused the accident.

The aircraft radioed a “mayday” to military air traffic controllers, but the pilots did not describe their problem before the craft went down.

The crash occurred about 7:30 p.m. EST Monday in woods accessible only by four-wheel-drive vehicle near Jacksonville in southeastern North Carolina.

“The rotors got real loud and it disappeared behind a tree,” Mark Calnan, who lives near the crash site, told Associated Press. “There was an orange flash--a great big one. Then I heard a pop. It crackled like thunder.”

McCorkle said that the plane was five to seven miles from base when the trouble developed. It would have been flying in airplane mode, he said, and there was no initial indication from the wreck that its twin rotors had been tilted up for landing.

“This loss is deeply felt by all Marines, particularly so close to the holidays,” McCorkle said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.”

He told reporters that he did not think the crash--the fourth since 1991--would mean the end of the Osprey program. “I don’t think it’ll be a show-stopper. I don’t think that there’s any other aircraft out there anywhere for the money that would do the mission for the Marine Corps.”

Lt. Col. Keith M. Sweaney, 42, of Richmond, Va., the Osprey’s pilot, was slated to become commander of the Marines’ first Osprey squadron next year. McCorkle said that Sweaney knew more about the aircraft than any other pilot and had briefed top military officers on the Osprey.

“If I flew with anyone out of the entire Marine Corps where I’d be in the back, I’d want to be with Lt. Col. Sweaney,” McCorkle said. Sweaney was a decorated veteran of the Persian Gulf War.

Maj. Michael Murphy, 38, of Blauvelt, N.Y., the co-pilot, was a helicopter veteran who had served in Marine Corps missions in the Near East, Africa, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. He was married and the father of a young son and daughter.

Also killed were Staff Sgt. Avely W. Runnels, 25, of Morven, Ga.; and Sgt. Jason A. Buyck, 24, of Sodus, N.Y. Both were married.

The Osprey’s flight data recorder, which captures more than 270 bits of flight-related information, has been located. A Marine Corps spokesman said that the Osprey is the only military aircraft outfitted with such recorders, which are required on civilian airliners.

A report last month by a Pentagon agency that tests equipment concluded that the Osprey would be unable to perform reliably in combat without extensive maintenance.

“Unless corrected, these issues will impose an unacceptable burden--cost, manpower, mission reliability and operational availability--on the fleet,” concluded the report, obtained by Bloomberg News.

In the Bush administration, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney tried to kill the Osprey program, citing its high cost and complexity.

But the Marine Corps appealed to Congress and prevailed. If Texas Gov. George W. Bush is elected president, he has promised a review of all major military aircraft programs--including the Osprey.

“Cheney worked like a dog to cancel the thing to no avail,” said Dan Goure, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“If he comes in as vice president and this issue comes around again, Cheney may well be proven right,” he said.

But Goure added that the military has a track record of sticking with problem aircraft in which it has invested heavily.

“It may have passed the point at which it can be canceled, unless there is a fundamental flying problem,” Goure said.

The other Osprey crash this year, near Tucson, on April 8, killed 19 Marines who were on a training exercise simulating the evacuation of an embassy in hostile territory.

The plane crashed nose-down as a result of what investigators concluded was a too-speedy descent by the pilot. Fifteen of the dead Marines were based near San Diego.

A 1992 crash that killed seven was caused by an engine fire. A 1991 crash, which injured two, was attributed to a wiring problem.

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An Unusual Design

Tuesday’s accident raised new doubts about the future of the high-tech dV-22 Osprey, whose rotors swivel to allow vertical takeoffs