US Marine aircraft crashes off east coast of Australia

news.com.au ^ | 5th August 2017

[naturalman1975]

A MASSIVE search is underway after a Marine Corps aircraft crashed off the coast of Australia.

Military officials said in a statement an MV-22 crashed off the east coast of Australia. It’s unclear how many service members were on board.

[BwanaNdege]

My niece’s husband is an Osprey Crew chief deployed to Australia now. Time to do some digging.

[huldah1776]

Prayers for all, including families.

[Georgia Girl 2]

An Osprey. Surprise surprise, surprise. Flying death traps.

[Vaquero]

Yup. Sounds right.

[Rummyfan]

One thing did stand out ... for every hour of flight time there is (at least then) 21 hours of maintenance required on the Osprey.

It's a complicated machine no doubt. But when I was at NAS Sig they flew in and out constantly no problems.

[Rummyfan]

One thing did stand out ... for every hour of flight time there is (at least then) 21 hours of maintenance required on the Osprey.

It's a complicated machine no doubt. But when I was at NAS Sig they flew in and out constantly no problems.

[rlmorel]

It is a complicated aircraft. But so is the CH-53, a platform that the V-22 was expected to take on some (though not all) of the missions.

Just to keep it in perspective, between 1984 and 1987 (just a cursory look) we lost 6 CH-53s with associated fatalities. (and these were only CH-53E models...during peacetime)

These are complicated platforms. I am sure people were saying in 1987 “Another CH-53 crash...”

I don’t quote the accident rates because how they are counted and graded can be complicated (and contentious) so I just looked at losses of the airframe with fatalities.

[rlmorel]

I was down on the Outer Banks last year, and there was a V-22 practicing at the small civilian airfield out on Okrakoke. It went on for a few hours, the Osprey would fly in at high speed at around 500-100 feet, pull up abruptly at the airfield and land. Then it would take off vertically, and transition to level flight, disappear, return, and repeat.

The striking thing about it was, there was a group of us walking along the beach, and that thing appeared so fast over us with no warning or advance sound we couldn't get our cameras out in time to take photos or video. We were looking for it next time it came around)

Point is, it is a revolutionary platform, pretty much first of its kind. It isn't perfect. It has advantages and disadvantages. Fast and quieter ingress and egress is one of them. If you have ever been around nearly any other helicopter (specifically a CH-53 which is loud as hell) you can hear them 5-10 miles away...at least.

[sean327]

The V-22 replaced the CH-46as the Marines medium lift aircraft. The CH-53 if a heavy lift platform.

[Secret Agent Man]

For all the trouble i wonder if they really are so much better than the choppers they replaced.

[Uncle Sam 911]

More dead Marines in the flying coffin.

[rlmorel]

true, but for long range troop insertions, the CH46 cannot do it, only the CH-53 could with inflight refueling.

Either way, the chopper is far more vulnerable during ingress and egress.

[2111USMC]

Search called off for 3 US Marines who crashed off Australia

U.S. military officials called off a search and rescue operation on Sunday for three U.S. Marines who were missing after their Osprey aircraft crashed into the sea off the east coast of Australia while trying to land.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps suspended the rescue operation and launched a recovery effort instead, the Marine base Camp Butler in Japan said in a statement, essentially confirming the military does not expect to find the missing Marines alive.

-snip-

ABC News via AP so I excerpted.