Two marines died and 20 Marines and a Navy corpsman were injured from an MV-22 Osprey aircraft crash due to a hard landing during a training exercise Sunday, May 17, one on site and the other in the hospital later on Wednesday, May 20.
The craft took off from the USS Essex, a navy ship 100 miles offshore of Oahu, to drop off infantry Marines to train on land, according to the Associated Press.
The victims were Lance Corporal Joshua Barron from Washington and Lance Corporal Matthew Determan from Arizona, said AP. Three other injured Marines were stabilized in the hospital. They and their fellow Marines were based in Camp Pendleton, Calif., and had left for a seven-month deployment to the Middle East and the Pacific, according to AP.
Witnesses reported they saw the Osprey performing a maneuver when the aircraft “kicked up dirt,” and then saw fire and smoke, according to AP.
Hawaii is a strategic military spot, with multiple military bases on Oahu, so it is easy for students to know or become close friends with people on base. Taylor Merserve, a sophomore from Utah studying music, said when she first heard about the news that she had “a lot of friends and stuff that are in K bay. It was scary for us.”
Friend and peer, Amee Whitmarsh, a sophomore from Australia studying elementary education, sympathized with Merserve, who is dating a Marine on leave. “It’s not like it had anything to do with him, but the fact that anyone else can get hurt even in a simple training exercise is scary.”
The MV-22 Osprey is a tilt-rotor aircraft that takes off and lands much like a helicopter, but flies like a plane and is able to travel longer than a normal helicopter. Because of its unique build, it is also able to access almost anywhere, and fly as fast as an airplane. These aircraft have been used in Afghanistan and Iraq and have flown to give aid to those in Nepal this past month, according to AP.
The Osprey program was almost cancelled after a period of mechanical failures and test crashes that had killed 23 Marines in 2000. The military responded to those crashes by eliminating risks and training more experienced pilots, reported AP. Compared to other flights, however, the Osprey has had less casualties than other helicopters and planes, having 3.2 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours compared to 2.98 per 100,000 for CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters that Ospreys were replacing, said AP.
“It’s sad there was a loss of life,” said Aaron Ng’ambi, a graduate in political science from Zambia. “But if this has happened before and this type of helicopter plane has crashed before, I don’t think the military should be using that.”
Despite the crash on Sunday, the Osprey will continue to be used because of its usefulness to access hard to reach areas, such as areas in Nepal and other remote areas.