Why they call the Osprey the 'widow maker'
After the hybrid craft has been linked to a series deaths, one wonders why it's taken so long to face the facts.
JULIA GLEDHILL
SEP 21, 2023
The V-22 Osprey flies like a bird and hovers like a bee.
Furnished with rotors at the end of each wing, the aircraft takes off and lands like a helicopter but relies on its fixed wings to go the distance during flight. For this reason, some consider the Osprey the best of both worlds in aviation — others call it “the widow maker.”
Just a few weeks ago, three Marines died in an Osprey crash during a training exercise in Australia, bringing total fatalities involving the Osprey to over 50. And while there are certainly more dangerous aircraft out there (take the CH-53E helicopter, for example), what’s striking about the Osprey is that since the aircraft became operational in 2007, most of the fatalities involving the aircraft have happened during training exercises, not active operations.
Still, the Osprey isn’t historically reliable when it comes to combat readiness. In fact, the program missed the boat on meeting its reliability rate goals in every year from 2011 to 2021 — despite taking its first flight in 1989. The aircraft didn’t make its combat debut until 2007, having missed deployment to “Bosnia in 1995, Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003.” And for good reason — during the testing phase, the aircraft experienced four crashes resulting in 30 fatalities.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/v22-osprey/
