In separate declarations, the US Air Force (USAF) and US Navy (USN) announced that they have grounded their respective V-22 fleets on December 6. The grounding comes after a USAF CV-22 crashed on November 29, close to Yakushima, Japan.
In a statement released on December 6, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) stated on the crash on November 29, “Preliminary investigation information indicates a potential materiel failure caused the mishap, but the underlying cause of the failure is unknown at this time.”
“NAVAIR [Naval Air Systems Command] is instituting a grounding bulletin for all V-22 Osprey variants Dec. 6 out of an abundance of caution, following the AFSOC operational stand down,” the USN arm that manages naval aviation—including the CMV- and MV-22s flown by the USN and US Marine Corps—wrote. “We are implementing additional risk mitigation controls to ensure the safety of our service members while the incident is still being investigated.”
