The Marine Corps says that three Okinawa V-22 Ospreys that diverted from scheduled flight paths last week due to “caution indications” in the cockpit did not appear to suffer from a clutch issue that has plagued the service’s fleet and caused at least one fatal crash.
“Currently, there are no indications that these events resulted from an MV-22 hard clutch engagement (HCE) malfunction. In each of these events, the aircraft sensors and monitoring systems performed as designed,” Maj. Rob Martins, a spokesperson for the Okinawa-based 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, said in an email Monday night.
The clutch malfunction shreds components that power the Osprey’s twin rotors, and appears to be a risk for both the Marine Corps and Air Force fleets. Last year, a crash caused by a hard clutch engagement killed five Marines in an Osprey incident near El Centro, California.
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The cause of the warnings in the Osprey cockpits was not disclosed by the service.
The Marine Corps has said that it has significantly reduced the risk of hard clutch engagements following the crash of the “Swift 11” Osprey last year, though some families of the Marines who died in the incident remain skeptical.
Prior to the Osprey diversions last week, three Marines also died in late August after their Osprey went down during a routine multinational training event near…
