Internal safety documents obtained by Military.com show that warnings related to a mechanical issue that caused an Air Force Osprey to crash off the coast of Japan last year, killing eight airmen, had been identified as far back as 2013 but seemingly went unaddressed.
An investigation released earlier this month by the Air Force pointed to an issue in the controversial tilt-rotor aircraft’s prop rotor gearbox as a cause of the Nov. 29 crash. Specifically, the service identified a single high-speed planetary pinion gear that had fractured.
But an internal Safety Investigation Board report — which has not been made public — showed that other gears in that gearbox similarly failed in 2013 and warnings related to that part failure were brought to the Pentagon a year later. Plus, serious manufacturing issues plagued the components for years.
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The Osprey, call sign Gundam 22, was on an Air Force Special Operations Command training mission off the coast of Yakushima Island, Japan. As the single gear began to shred, it sent debris throughout the gearbox, which in turn began to fail and caused the left proprotor to stop operating. The aircraft then fell out of the sky.
It was the deadliest CV-22B crash in the Air Force’s history, claiming the lives of Maj. Jeffrey T. Hoernemann; Maj. Eric V. Spendlove; Maj. Luke A. Unrath; Capt. Terrell K. Brayman;…
