The Marine Corps says it won’t be grounding its fleet of MV-22B Osprey plane lower than a day after the Air Drive introduced an indefinite halt, citing questions of safety with the airplane’s clutch.
The Corps mentioned that it is recognized about the issue since 2010 and its pilots can deal with it, with one service official calling the problems “widespread information.”
“Laborious clutch problem has been recognized to the Marine Corps since 2010, and as such, we now have skilled our pilots to react with the suitable emergency management measures ought to the problem come up throughout flight,” Maj. Jim Stenger, a spokesman for the department, mentioned in a press assertion launched Thursday.
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Though the Osprey is fielded by the Marines, Navy and Air Drive, the Corps has logged an amazing majority of all of the army flight hours for the plane — 533,000 out of a complete of 680,000.
Stenger, in his assertion, famous that, in all these flight hours, there has not been “a single catastrophic occasion contributed to this hazard.”
An official with U.S. Air Drive Particular Operations Command, the group that operates the Air Drive’s Ospreys and introduced that service’s grounding of the plane Wednesday, described the problem as a slip in a single engine’s clutch, “which causes the engine [system] to switch all the facility into one of many [two] engines to maintain the Osprey within the air.”
“When the pilot grabs the throttle of the Osprey, the imbalance is creating an excessive amount of torque on the plane,” the official added.
A Marine Corps official who spoke with reporters on the situation of anonymity defined that solely 15 mishaps involving the “arduous clutch problem” have occurred within the army because the begin of this system, with 10 involving Marine Corps plane. “It’s common information with the fleet,” they added.
“In each incident, the plane landed safely and there have been no accidents because of the failure,” the official defined.
The official mentioned that “over two-thirds of those occurrences have occurred inside seconds after takeoff,” including that the Corps has lengthy had procedures in place for its pilots.
“Just by doing hover checks considerably reduces the publicity to this incident,” the official defined, referring to a process of hovering roughly 30 ft off the bottom whereas wanting over the plane’s devices.
Marine Corps officers mentioned that they’ve shared their information about how one can deal with the problem with each the Navy and the Air Drive as incidents occurred “through numerous formal and casual strategies of communication often.”
Navy.com reached out to the Air Drive to ask why it selected to face down its plane in mild of the prevailing data from the Marine Corps however didn’t obtain a reply in time for publication.
The Marine Corps, in a truth sheet launched Thursday, famous “the USAF employs the V-22 platform in another way than the Marine Corps.”
Navy.com additionally requested the Air Drive why its assertion instructed the problem had existed solely since 2017 — not 2010 because the Marines mentioned — however didn’t obtain a reply.
The Navy, which additionally makes use of the Osprey aboard its plane carriers, mentioned by way of a spokesman yesterday that it’ll proceed to function its model as properly, however added that it was “conscious of the problems effecting [sic] the U.S. Air Drive CV-22 fleet and are carefully monitoring our CMV-22 plane for comparable occurrences.”
The Marine Corps official mentioned that no Navy plane has skilled the clutch problem.
Though the Marine Corps pressured that there have been no accidents or deaths because of the clutch problem, it is clear that it has been pricey. The Marine official defined that every of the 15 incidents necessitated both changing an Osprey’s gearbox, engine or each, relying “on the character of the failure.”
Regardless of persevering with to function their Ospreys, Marine Corps officers mentioned the service will nonetheless attempt to kind out a longer-term resolution.
“We’ll reinforce our takeoff maneuvers — to alert the aircrew to only reinforce checking the gauges as a result of, in a short time, you will get indication within the cockpit, if this happens,” the Marine Corps official defined.
— Konstantin Toropin might be reached at konstantin.toropin@army.com. Comply with him on Twitter @ktoropin.
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