Semper Fi: Memorialize Lost Marines by Proceeding with — Not Slowing, Cutting or Canceling — the V-22 Program

(Washington, D.C.): This weekend’s tragic loss of 19 Marines in a crash involving the V-22 “Osprey” tiltrotor aircraft is bringing out the usual critics urging that the program be shelved. Nothing could more grievously defile the memory of those lost servicemen — or do more to put at risk a generation of Marines whose future safety and operational effectiveness may depend upon the fullest possible utilization of the Marines’ version of the Osprey, the MV-22.

Any deviation from the planned procurement program appears unwarranted, moreover, in light of the great success the V-22 program has experienced thus far in its development and training phases. The Osprey fleet now has over 2,500 hours of flight time and a record of safe operations that permit it more accurately to be described as “revolutionary” than “experimental.” (The only two other accidents involving the V-22 occurred in an early stage in its development in 1991 and 1992, when the aircraft could properly considered to be experimental. Those setbacks, moreover, set the stage for continuing technological and structural improvements that have made today’s V-22 an even better and safer aircraft than in its original configuration — precisely what a development program is supposed to do.)

The V-22 is the world’s first — and, to date, only — transport aircraft with vertical take-off and landing capabilities, but with the capability to transition its propellers so as travel horizontally at speeds comparable to conventional turbo-props. Thanks to these qualities, the Osprey represents more than just an invaluable asset to the U.S. military — first for the Marines and, in due course, for special operations, combat search and rescue and other applications.

The Marines’ development and operational validation of tiltrotor technology promises, moreover, to be a genuine “peace dividend”: The U.S. government, the V-22 contractors (the Bell-Boeing team) and aerospace analysts have identified over 30 different missions that variants of the V-22 could perform including: commercial and corporate aviation, emergency medevac, freight transport and disaster and humanitarian relief. One needs only to look at the recent international response to flooding in Mozambique to realize that with the added speed, payload and mission duration made possible by tiltrotor technology, vastly larger numbers of victims could have been saved.

The Bottom Line

It would be foolish to cripple — let alone halt — a program that has performed exceptionally well because of a single accident at this stage of its development. This is all the more true since the cause of the accident remains uncertain and may have nothing to do with the safety or reliability of the aircraft. It would be a far more fitting response to the sacrifice these 19 Marines have made to redouble the final testing and accelerate the procurement of these exceptional tiltrotors, clearing the way for their full potential to be realized by the Nation as a whole.