On April 2000, a third MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft crashed, on a remote desert airstrip killing all 19 on board. At the time, the aircraft was number two in a two-plane MV-22 formation. The pilot, wearing night-vision goggles (NVGs), had roughly 80 hours of flight time in the aircraft. This particular crash is yet another example of a military aviation mishap in which the level of training and pilot proficiency were significant factors.
That the Department of Defense wants this $40 billion MV-22 program to move forward was demonstrated by a swift public-relations blitz. A dozen press releases related to the Osprey crash were lodged quickly on the Marine Corps official website, and at least three major press conferences were held at the Pentagon. The Commandant of the Marine Corps and his wife later were on board the first aircraft to fly after the fleet returned to service.
The training issue was raised briefly at one press conference when a reporter asked if the pilot, by regulation, had enough hours flying the MV-22 to carry troops. The briefer confirmed that the mishap pilot had roughly 80 hours at the controls of a MV-22, but then went on to stress the mishap pilot's 3,500 flight hours in KC-130s. The reporter persisted. "My question was—is 80 hours [in the V-22] a sufficient number of hours under Marine Corps regulations to be flying passengers?" The briefer dodged the question again, responding: "The next time you get on a commercial airplane, you might want to check with the guy in the right seat because the first time that he ever carries passengers is on his first flight on a commercial airplane." The central issue of training was left unaddressed. In any event, commercial pilots are not in the habit of landing in formation, on unlit fields, wearing goggles that restrict one's field of view by 60%.
In comparison, a Marine Corps helicopter (rotary-wing lift) pilot—the mode that the MV-22 mishap pilot was operating in when he crashed—will log well over 100 actual flight hours before carrying troops, and will have a minimum of 25 hours flying with NVGs.
Eighty hours in the MV-22 did not make the mishap pilot an experienced rotary-wing pilot, although—granted—he was a highly experienced KC-130 pilot. The post-crash briefing alluded that the pilot got into "power-settling," a situation that can occur in rotary-wing aircraft when the rate of descent is too great and the forward airspeed too slow. The instability and the aircraft's own rotor wash cause a loss of lift and the aircraft becomes difficult to control. Recovery procedures for this situation in rotary-wing aircraft involve reducing power and lowering the nose. This is a fundamentally different procedure from that used in fixed-wing aircraft (such as the KC-130), where the pilot, when confronted with a similar situation (a stall), is trained to add power and lower the nose.
Interestingly, in late July the Marine Corps disciplined the pilot and co-pilot of the lead MV-22 for contributing to the mishap by establishing an excessive rate of descent during their approach and failing to break it off—thus putting the second aircraft into a difficult situation.
A Marine CH-53 pilot, who asked not to be named, advanced his own theory of what might have occurred. "Perhaps, overtasked and in a deteriorating situation, the pilot reverted to 3,500 hours of fixed-wing training and added power." This is pure speculation, but it will be interesting to see what the flight data recorder shows, as far as control inputs are concerned, when the investigation is complete.
Statistically, Marine tactical pilots are three times as susceptible to catastrophic mishaps prior to attaining 700 hours (300 to 500 hours is the most dangerous period) in model. The total amount of flight time that the pilot may have from a variety of aircraft is a far less significant factor. The recent MV-22 mishap is not the only high-profile case where low hours-in-model has been a factor.
One year ago, a Marine Corps F/A-18 pilot dropped a bomb that landed near a control tower at the range on Vieques, Puerto Rico, killing a Puerto Rican national who worked at the facility. The political fallout from that event is still a contentious issue affecting the ability of combat air crews to train. The pilot who dropped that bomb fell into the same low-hour-in-model category.
Even more widely covered by the media was the case of the Marine Corps EA-6B pilot whose jet on 3 February 1998 sliced through ski gondola wires in Italy. Again, the mishap pilot fell in this same low-hour-in-model category. Even more egregious, he had not flown a low-altitude flight in seven months. Reflecting today's reality with regard to the modern military, the pilot had received more sexual-harassment training in the year leading up to the mishap than training in low-level flight.
No official can claim with a straight face that military aviators on the whole are anywhere near as proficient as they were ten years ago. Just once, it would be nice to see a Pentagon briefer discuss why proficiency has deteriorated so much—rather than write off yet another tragedy as "pilot error." We owe the families of those dead 19 Marines at least that much.
Major Steven Danyluk, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, who flew Marine Corps EA-6Bs while on active duty, flies for a major U.S. airline.