Marines Begin Crashing Ospreys On Okinawa
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.
"If you use the key metric of crashes while in-fli…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Duffel Blog to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.