OKINAWA, JAPAN – The Marine Corps has begun crashing its MV-22 Ospreys on Okinawa, a top Marine general has confirmed.

Lt. Gen. Terry Robling, the commander of Marine Corps Forces Pacific, told Duffel Blog that Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 265 (HMM-265, Motto: Look Out Below!) had crashed its first Osprey on the island at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma on Oct. 1 and will begin crashing additional Ospreys just as soon as they can be scraped off the tarmac of MCAS Iwakuni.

The MV-22 Osprey, known affectionately by its crews as The Flying Pinto, is a revolutionary vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft that can fly like a plane and hover like a block of cement.

It's operated with an exceptional safety record ever since the first one spontaneously blew up on the assembly line and has a history of outstanding operational crashes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Libya since the Marine Corps first began fielding them in 2005.