All five aboard survived the crash of an Air Force CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor during a Wednesday evening gunnery training run in the Eglin Range over the Florida panhandle. Initial details were provided by the 1st Special Operations Wing to which the aircraft was assigned. The crash aircraft had been trailing a lead Osprey that initiated search and rescue when it reversed course and found the second aircraft was no longer in trail. The crashed tilt-rotor was found inverted with significant damage. A post-crash fire did not consume the aircraft. The crash led the wing to stand down operations for the day.
According to a spokesman for the Air Force, there is no reason to suspect that any fundamental design flaws led to the accident. The military does not expect to suspend CV-22 operations and planned Thursday to continue gunnery training. The last Osprey accident involved an MV-22 Osprey flown by the Marine Corps during a training exercise in Morocco. That accident took the lives of two Marines. Safety concerns put forward earlier this month by local officials have stalled plans to deploy Marine Ospreys to a Japanese city. The aircraft costs $89 million per copy and can carry up to 32 troops or 10,000 pounds of cargo, according to an Air Force fact sheet.
