Six months after a tragic V-22 Osprey crash off the coast of Japan resulted in the deaths of eight US Air Force special operators, the surviving members of the 21st Special Operations Squadron are getting back to work ahead of a return to flight sometime this year.
The Pentagon in March greenlit a plan that would allow the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps to slowly restart V-22 flight operations, paving the way for the Osprey to return to the skies following the Nov. 29 mishap and subsequent grounding.
The 21st Special Operations Squadron (SOS) located at Yokota Air Base, Japan — which was home to six of the airmen killed in the crash — has yet to restart CV-22 flights, and there is no exact timetable to do so, 21st SOS Commander Lt. Col. Matt Davis told Breaking Defense in his first interview since the November mishap.
However, a group of six members from both the 21st SOS and the 753rd Special Operations Aircraft Maintenance Squadron (SOAMXS), which maintains the five CV-22 Ospreys assigned to the unit, stressed to Breaking Defense that they are ready to see the CV-22 back in action and have no concerns about the safety of the aircraft.
“They’re confident in the decision making from our higher headquarters and the Joint Program Office,” said Lt. Col. Eric Cranford, commander of the 753th SOAMXS. Those leaders “are looking at 750,000 flight hours of history and making data driven decisions. That gives me, as a commander, comfort in our technical order changes to, say, do ‘XYZ’ instead of ‘ABC.’”
While the Navy and Marine Corps have been quick to restart V-22 flight operations, flying shortly after the return to flight criteria was announced, the Air Force has moved more slowly. As of May 29, several Ospreys at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico have begun flying operations focusing on rebuilding crew currency in the aircraft, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) spokesperson Lt. Col. Rebecca Heyse told Breaking Defense. Japanese and US Marine Corps V-22s resumed flight operations in Japan in March.
US military officials from AFSOC, the service’s contingent that operates its CV-22 variant, and the V-22 Joint Program Office have not disclosed the exact course of action units will take to return the Osprey to flight. However, in March, AFSOC Commander Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind laid out the basics of a three-pronged approach that starts with ground simulator training, integrating new safety controls and protocols and reviewing maintenance records. (Bauernfeind has since been tapped to lead the Air Force Academy.)
The second phase involves a “multi-month program” for aircrews and maintainers to regain “basic mission currency,” before moving to the final phase where operations will be fully resumed, Bauernfeind said.
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For the two squadrons at Yokota, some of that work has already started. The 21st SOS is running its ground-based V-22 simulator twice a day, five times per week, with aircrews moving through a “pretty rigorous program” focused on emergency procedures, Davis said.
Meanwhile, the maintainers of the 753rd are using the time that would normally be spent fixing aircraft to add training tasks during phased inspections of the CV-22s, an in-depth analysis of the tiltrotor that occurs after a scheduled period of time. For instance, maintainers — especially the new members of the squadron, who joined in recent months — will pull out and re-install different parts in order to practice skills they would normally be doing as part of their job.
“Just like any other specialty, there’s going to be some muscle atrophy,” Cranford said, adding that when the 21st restarts flight operations, it will be his job to ensure that his airmen can keep up with the maintenance demands of the aircraft and to advocate for more maintenance time between flights, if needed.
“That’s really what it’s going to be, is taking it day by day, doing the temperature check and making sure our folks are in the right headspace,” he said.
Both Davis and Cranford were careful not to put a timeline on any future activities associated with the CV-22 return to flight, noting that their priority is to ensure that aircrew and maintainers feel confident and mentally resilient enough to restart operations.
“Emotions come in different waves,” Davis said. “It’s a very personal experience — loss, grief and everything goes along with that. So that aspect of return-to-fly has been a central focus for all of us.”
But aircrew and maintainers are showing signs that they’re eager to get back to work. For instance, Davis said pilots are fighting over the opportunity to do low-rung tasks typically performed by squadron members with little seniority, such as ground runs, where a pilot starts up an aircraft to allow maintainers to check the performance of its engines and systems.
“It’s our vocation to go fly this thing,” Davis said. “I jumped on a ground run the other day just so I could go turn rotors and fire everything up and see the screens queued up.”
Davis wasn’t the only one who expressed excitement about the return to flight.
“People want to come back and work on this thing,” said Tech Sgt. Richard Bassett, a CV-22 flightline expediter with the 753rd. “Maybe not because the aircraft is super easy, and every day is super awesome, but because the people here are super awesome.”
For the two squadrons, the next major milestone is a functional check flight: a short, basic flight where the V-22 will take off and fly close to the base. Davis said he had already called dibs on piloting that first sortie, but wasn’t willing to estimate when it would occur.
