Various debacles often serve to raise the question of whether the military-industrial complex exists to serve the United States or the United States exists to serve the military-industrial complex. The story of the V-22 Osprey is one of those debacles.
The Osprey is a revolutionary piece of equipment, in theory. The aircraft is able to take off vertically like a helicopter but rotate its propellers horizontally to fly like a prop plane.
The technology would seem to combine the best of both worlds, combining a helicopter’s ability to take off and land in small spaces and whisk soldiers to faraway battlefields with the speed of an airplane. The US Marine Corps, which operates most of the Ospreys in service, has called it a “game-changing assault support platform.”
The only problem is that the Osprey often tends to crash and kill its operators. Just recently it happened off the coast of Japan, resulting in the grounding of the entire fleet.
The incident resulted in the death of eight Air Force Special Operations Command members on board. A preliminary investigation blames the crash on a “material failure” – that is, a problem with the aircraft rather than the actions of its crew.
The Osprey has been dogged with questions for years about its safety. The operation of its rotating propeller system places stress on the aircraft’s equipment unlike that experienced by any other vehicle.
Key to the issues suffered by the Osprey is the functioning of a special clutch that connects engines on either side of the aircraft. Investigators believe the equipment wears out quickly, with fatal consequences. A 2022 Osprey crash in California created a fire that was so severe that the aircraft’s flight data recorder was destroyed.
Some 50 service members have been killed in Osprey crashes, and the aircraft has been grounded multiple times before. Some believe insufficient material strength is the cause of the vehicle’s problems. But the ultimate root cause remains unknown, and the US military is investigating the issue.
In the meantime, families of US service members will have to consider whether they want them to effectively serve as guinea pigs for the testing of the MIC’s most famous boondoggle.