A U.S. Navy CMV-22 Osprey lands on the flight deck of USS John P. Murtha with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on April 10, 2026.
Posted by Aeromarine_eng@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 75 comments
Photo Credit: (NASA)
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
You can tell how important someone is by whether they are allowed to ride an Osprey. Which is kind of crazy.
RetardedChimpanzee@reddit
“Sir, you can’t ride in a helicopter to see your astronauts that went to the moon, because it’s too dangerous. “
Given his aviation and space experience I’m pretty sure he’d fight back on that, if told too he couldn’t.
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
It's been a while since I looked into it, but the V-22 is significantly more dangerous than a helicopter.
The current estimate is 7 catastrophic failures per million flight hours. The military "minimum standard" is 1 per 10 million flight hours
https://theaircurrent.com/defense/v-22-ospreys-safety-assessments-flawed-gears-x-53-inclusions/
One of the saddest parts about this is there was a redditor who flew them who was a big advocate of the program who was killed in one of the crashes. I've flown with a few former Osprey pilots and they all said it was a very capable platform, but incredibly high risk. The only reason it flies is because it can do things that regular fixed wing and helicopters can't.
The V-22 cannot meet minimum FAA standards for certification for civilian use even in non commercial areas, which under part 23 is the same as what is nominally the military standard of 1:10 million flight hours (the military can exempt what they want if they deem the risk worthwhile).
I get your point, it's just that the V22 is not a helicopter both in function and safety.
Correct_Inspection25@reddit
A couple of points, ignoring repeated chip warnings will be a similar or worse bad time even in normal helicopters, and they ignored several and a chance to abort.
The other point is that statistically over the lifetime of the airframe, its at least as safe as the CH-46/CH-53. https://defenseopinion.com/setting-the-record-straight-on-the-safety-of-the-v-22-osprey/744/
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
First, the V-22 gets nuisance chip detector warnings. It was published SOP at the time to clear the warnings until the third one. They were following procedure.
Second, more data last year made your information stale. They thought at the time that failures would tend to be gradual and indicated. It turns out that not only is it not the case but the rate of defects in the gears is higher than estimated. They also have no non destructive method of finding defects.
Correct_Inspection25@reddit
Absolutely agree that supply chain issues/defects is a problem, but its not the worst aircraft in service right now in terms of saftey.
2022-2025: 12 V-22 Class A mishaps
2022-2025: 28 H-60 Class A mishaps
The 2025 GAO report show things improving significantly over time with 2024 being much lower than 2023 in terms of incidents.
Again, a number of incident reports showed ignoring chip warning lights was found to be endemic and against SOP.
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/31/washington-plane-crash-army-helicopter-accidents/
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
I'm more interested in mishaps per flight hour than total. I think the 60 flies much more than 22.
Again, the 22 chip detector burns off metal, they were supposed to wait so long to see if it cleared out indicated a larger piece and then wait until it returned. The Japan crash I was specifically told they were following SOP
PatekCollector77@reddit
60s also take fire and land in contested areas much more commonly then Ospreys
conaan@reddit
Land as soon as practical is not "wait and see if it clears"
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
That isn't what SOP was when the incident happened. This from Osprey pilots.
conaan@reddit
The NATOPS has never said that, the air force does air force things, but the major operator of the platforms publications are standardized to not ignoring chips.
Correct_Inspection25@reddit
You claimed my numbers were stale, and asserted they were following procedure, thus it must be on fundamental defect.
Thats why i mentioned the V-22 GAO 2025 report that followed the NAVAIR report, and the marked improvement in the V-22 safety after operator retraining/planning responding to chip/maintenance issues.
After 2023 and the grounding post Japan crash, the Air Force and Navy saw a roughly \~40% YoY drop in Class A mishaps in their V-22 fleets compared to their 2015–2022 yearly averages.
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
More data came out last year regarding the gearsets.
The problem isn't the rates they had it's the forecast for potential for more increased drastically.
Correct_Inspection25@reddit
"The GAO report proposed five recommendations that aim to improve program oversight and communication between the three services about safety risks, maintenance procedures and accident reporting. NAVAIR’s review recommended that the services accelerate fixes in the proprotor boxes, replace the suspect X-53 steel and develop an overall mid-life refurbishment plan for the Ospreys. The comprehensive review also recommended tougher proficiency requirements for V-22 crews and maintainers and implemented a fleet-wide tracking system for aircraft components" https://news.usni.org/2025/12/12/new-v-22-mishap-reviews-find-material-issues-with-osprey-poor-communication-between-services
I get that the article you posted has a take, but its not the complete picture and GAO report using the most recent data its talking about or quoting key conclusions around training, tracking bad lots, and communicating across branches.
reddituserperson1122@reddit
Apparently you have a bad case of groupthink: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2024/02/groupthink-gives-v-22-bad-rap/394420/
Cornflake0305@reddit
I think what should also be looked at is how these mishaps unfold.
I would assume a helicopter has a much better chance of not killing everyone on board in case of a mishap (autorotation), than the Osprey, which drops like a rock if an engine fails.
Is that put into consideration in these reports?
Nintenderloin64@reddit
If an engine fails, the Osprey has another one. The gearboxes are mechanically linked and both props will keep turning and it can land safely, just with the power from one engine.
If somehow it’s forced into an autorotation, your bet is the aircraft that has wings and flaps that can produce some lift, along with helicopter-like autorotation capabilities, is going to be significantly more dangerous than a conventional helicopter? I’m not sure what to say.
The Osprey has a bad safety reputation. Is it deserved? Not so much. It’s among the safest military “helicopters” currently in operation.
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
If an engine fails your right. The Osprey problem is that if any one of the gear boxes fail the aircraft is uncontrollable. 1
dabarak@reddit
I knew a Navy master chief who was working on the Osprey program - I don't remember in what capacity, but it was well beyond turning wrenches. Anyway, at least up until last year, the gearboxes were a real problem, bad enough that either they were being replaced with new, upgraded versions, or the existing ones were being upgraded. (Still need coffee, sorry for inexact statements.)
reddituserperson1122@reddit
I think the reports are concerned with what has happened rather than what could happen. The trade off between capability and safety is just a part of life. You’d be safer traveling to work in a tank but it would come with other drawbacks. If you drive a car you don’t have to worry about autorotation at all. But you can’t get to many of the places the marines need to go. That’s just the deal.
drjellyninja@reddit
The osprey has a driveshaft and transmission that runs through the wing so that both rotors are driven by the remaining engine if one fails. If they have a dual engine failure they can in theory glide to an emergency landing but I don't believe that's ever happened
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
That article is 2 years old and aged poorly.
New data came out last year
reddituserperson1122@reddit
They suddenly discovered a bunch of crashes they hadn’t previously noticed..?
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
They realized the problem with defects in gear production was much more widespread than they thought.
reddituserperson1122@reddit
You can let us know when that has any effect on the statistics.
RandomPixelTM@reddit
This is out of date information.
SirLoremIpsum@reddit
It's actually the opposite. It is significantly safer than its predecessors H-46 and H-53 platforms
kmac6821@reddit
Is that really true for the Navy version though?
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
It still has the fundamental flaw that if one of those gear boxes fails, the aircraft is totally unrecoverable and everyone dies.
reddituserperson1122@reddit
If the fuel inverting system in a 747 fails, the airplane can explode in midair. The only important question is, does that happen a lot? For the V-22 (and the 747) these failures don’t happen a lot. It’s a safe aircraft.
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
No to cannot. That is utter nonsense. It is a passive fuel-retention feature inside the tanks. If it fails, the consequence is loss of reliable fuel pickup, not an explosion.
No. That’s not acceptable. You can’t have a plausible mechanical failure that can immediately bring down the aircraft. A gearbox failing is not at all some out-there, niche scenario. It’s perfectly possible without edge-case statistics. FFS in a system like that, the gear box is the most mechanically prone to breaking…
reddituserperson1122@reddit
"If the fuel inverting system in a 747 fails, the airplane can explode in midair." - Sorry that was an autocorrect typo. It was supposed to say "fuel interting system." (See TWA 800.)
"You can’t have a plausible mechanical failure that can immediately bring down the aircraft." Literally every aircraft has multiple plausible mechanical failures that can bring down the aircraft. The irony here is that this about Isaacman visiting the astronauts who just flew on a craft with multiple unrecoverable LCOV failure modes. We flew the shuttle for almost thirty years and it had even more than Orion. This is always the deal. You measure the capability a vehicle brings against the risk. If there were a nice, safe helicopter that could cruise at 270 knots and fly 500nm unrefueled I'm sure the Marines would have bought that. But there isn't.
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
That is not a realistic failure mode. You can’t jump from “this reduces fire risk” to “imminent catastrophe if this fails.” But that is EXACTLY the dynamic with the gearboxes on the osprey.
That’s pretty BS to refer to that. That has nothing to do with inerting systems. That has everything to do with flawed wiring and missed damage. Inerting systems are not what protects against another TWA800. Stricter regulations on designing fuel tanks and wiring are what protects against that. You can literally engineer away a fire source being near fuel. You cannot engineer away a spinning metal contraption, under high torque and high friction, ever failing.
They don’t have any where it’s a single-unrecoverable failure. You are wrong.
That’s space flight, not commercial aviation. Be serious…
And they measured wrong. The risk is too high.
reddituserperson1122@reddit
You're wrong on every count and it's not even close lol.
"That is not a realistic failure mode. You can’t jump from 'this reduces fire risk” to “imminent catastrophe if this fails.'"
A fuel tank explosion on a commercial aircraft is not a fire risk — it's pretty much a death sentence. Look at the NTSB report on how TWA 800 came apart. It is essentially impossible for an aircraft to remain structurally intact after a fuel tank explosion. Every single recorded accident that I am aware of that was reliably traced to to a fuel tank explosion resulted in complete destruction of the aircraft and the only ones with survivors were on the ground. (This includes TWA 800; Philippines 143; Thai 114; Pan Am 214, Avianca 203, and a number of other.) As long as there is an aerodynamic load on the airframe a fuel tank explosion will reliably destroy the aircraft. Not "cause a fire."
"That’s pretty BS to refer to that. That has nothing to do with inerting systems. That has everything to do with flawed wiring and missed damage. Inerting systems are not what protects against another TWA800. Stricter regulations on designing fuel tanks and wiring are what protects against that. You can literally engineer away a fire source being near fuel."
Everyone thought they had already done that before TWA 800 — engineers thought they had accounted for every scenario. You have this exactly backwards. I sincere hope you're not an engineer. As long as you have lots of electricity running around, you have the potential for sparks. For a hundred reasons. You can make things safer, but it is literally impossible to eliminate risk of sparking. Even if every system is designed perfectly (which nothing made by humans ever will be) you can't eliminate the risk of proximate damage causing sparks (such as in Avianca 203). That's why the FAA mandated fuel inerting systems. They didn't do that for fun. They did it because they found that other methods offered some protection, but inerting offered the most. And they concluded that it would have prevented virtually all hull losses due to vapor explosion that didn't include some other proximate cause like a bomb or the engine falling off the airplane.
HOWEVER. Even if none of that were true, you'd still be wrong. Because faulty wiring causing the near-instantaneous catastrophic breakup of an aircraft is still a single point of failure.
"You cannot engineer away a spinning metal contraption, under high torque and high friction, ever failing."
You're right. Hey... doesn't every powered aircraft ever built have a spinning metal contraption under high torque and friction..? Haven't a number of aircraft been brought down in catastrophic accidents by uncontained turbine failures or prop separation? Why yes, they have.
"They don’t have any where it’s a single-unrecoverable failure. You are wrong."
Really? This list must be pretty confusing to you then.
That’s space flight, not commercial aviation. Be serious…
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
I do need to add that the fuel inerting system is to add redundancy if the failure that caused the TWA 800 explosion were to happen to prevent ignition. So you'd need the system and it's backup to fail and then the same type of issue to happen.
reddituserperson1122@reddit
Oh for sure. But all aircraft safety is based on redundancy. And it’s important to note that the point of the inerting system is that it’s an entirely different element to the architecture that works independent from the electrical system. So you can have a catastrophic failure in the electrical system, or have a bomb go off or (very importantly) a failure on the ground during fueling or other activities and you still won’t get a fuel vapor ignition. Like you want to make sure your landing gear is reliable, and you want to have a gravity drop system. But you also want to engineer your plane to survive a belly landing without disintegrating.
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
The v22 doesn't have that redundancy. Each gear box is a single point of failure.
reddituserperson1122@reddit
As is the shear pin holding the engine onto an MD-11 as we recently learned. And the Jesus nut on so many otherwise safe helicopters.
Helicopters are famously more dangerous than fixed wing aircraft. It’s built into the design. I’d google the military accident rate but this other delightful guy will say it’s AI so you can search yourself.
The point is that we tolerate the inherent dangers of helicopters because they provide uniquely useful capabilities. And before you ignore that, let me point out that different helicopter models have different failure rates. I see people flipping out about the V-22 all the time but I very rarely see those same people saying, “we have to retire the CH-53 or whatever because it has a comparatively high failure rate compared the rest of the fleet.” Because you all just take it for granted that a UH-60 can’t lift what a CH-53 can, and a Chinook can’t fight like an Apache.
A V-22 can do things that none of these other aircraft can do, and much smarter and more knowledgeable people than you decided it was worth it to accept any attendant risks. The result is a vehicle with a perfectly unremarkable, average accident rate, that is flying safely all the time, and that its pilots consistently praise. And whose primary critics these days are pretty much limited to randos on Reddit.
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
My critics are three different former V-22 pilots I flew with. Although they aren't so much critics. They say the same thing. It can accomplish a mission nothing else can and thus is allowed a much higher risk assessment. But they all were in agreement that it shouldn't be used for missions that don't need those capabilities.
reddituserperson1122@reddit
I think that’s fair. It’s always right to minimize risk. I’m sure theres plenty of reasonable debate about what missions are essential, especially with regard to pilot training. After all, more flight hours expose you to more risk, while more flight hours make you a better, safer pilot. But yes it’s absolutely the right thing to use the safest platform for the job.
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
A marine Osprey pilot I spoke with was not impressed with the COD being replaced with a v-22, he added in that the C-2 can fit in normal carrier ops and can park where an E-2 does, but the V-22 can't.
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
Answer yourself. Don’t dump your argument off on AI. That’s some loser shit.
reddituserperson1122@reddit
Zero AI whatsover in this answer. It's telling that you have no response except to make cheap accusations. (BTW if it were AI, you'd still be wrong. It would just be a machine letting you know instead of me.)
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
That is absolutely AI.
That’s how AI quotes people when it makes a response. That’s not the format people use. Especially with perfect punctuation with quotes inside quotes.
And it over-uses em dashes, a hallmark of AI.
You didn’t just have 3 incidents with their flight numbers sitting on the tip of your tongue for a reddit response. That’s classic LLM referencing.
it fails to understand the point of what I’m saying and comes up with a voluminous, pedantic rebuttal that totally misses the point, another hallmark of AI.
Like this. You (AI) saw “airplanes don’t have single points of failure) and understood “there is never a primary cause of a crash” or “no aircraft has ever been brought down by one sole problem, ever in history.”
So either AI flubbed this like it always does, or you have terrible reading comprehension. Obviously those single-point failures have happened in the past. Aviation has matured beyond that. It’s a different ballgame. The inherent risk of the MV-22 belongs in 1966, not 2026.
Yeah, and if it fails they can glide. The osprey cant. You totally lose control. So is this classic AI failing at any nuance, or is this flub because of your obtuseness?
You didn’t refute one thing I said. That was just a gish gallop of pedantry and strawmen.
Is your profile hidden because you don’t want people seeing how much you lean on AI to argue for you?
reddituserperson1122@reddit
This is maybe the saddest comment I’ve come across on Reddit yet. I wish you plenty of luck with your cope. (And btw I can list off the numbers of god knows how many aviation accidents; I am a nerd. I know more than you. Obviously.) Good luck!
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
You think that’s gonna work? Who do you think you’re fooling? Who is this performance for?
conaan@reddit
A gearbox failure is entirely survivable in a V-22, it just requires the correct crew action. This is just another case of self professed experts continuing to spread misinformation on the osprey
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
How does the rotor turn with a gearbox failure?
conaan@reddit
Standard failure mode for a gearbox is for it to lose one of two paths for power to reach the proprotor, or freewheel. If it freewheels then you are in an asymmetric thrust situation and would transition to airplane if able, pull off the other engine and enter a power off glide to a roll on if able.
This is the same failure mode that is expected for main gearboxes on regular helicopters, and with the same understanding that if the gearbox seizes (on any helicopter or osprey) then you are very rapidly finding Jesus
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
I.E., it doesn’t, and it’s the same problem that helicopters have, except scaled up and more complicated. Hence why these failures become unrecoverable so quickly.
conaan@reddit
It's the same, I've been around this platform and other standard helicopters for a long time, having the ability to transition to airplane for gearbox issues is an absolute game changer for dealing with chips pressures or temperatures.
Having two paths for power to the proprotor by itself is great redundancy and is perfectly suitable for normal helicopters, there's no new problem with the osprey, that's just aviation and fearmongers latching onto a problem
asmrhead@reddit
Wait until you find out what happens if the main rotor gearbox fails on a helicopter.
BigJellyfish1906@reddit
That’s why it’s stupid that the osprey takes that problem, and then scales it up and makes it more complex with this tilt-rotor system.
SubarcticFarmer@reddit
They have the same issues, which is that the gears are prone to undetectable flaws that result in quick failures that are catastrophic and can be undetectable. As it is, the only way that ever does appear is a chip detector light, but they are also prone to nuisance chip detector warnings. A failure in any of the 5 gear boxes will cause said loss of control.
kmac6821@reddit
Sheesh, it makes one miss the mighty C-2.
xIllustrious_Passion@reddit
Showing up by Osprey wearing jeans is a god damn flex if I’ve ever seen one
wotmate7@reddit
I'm okay with him wearing jeans. I'm just not okay with him wearing THOSE jeans.
KickFacemouth@reddit
Once a tech bro...
Larrea_tridentata@reddit
Jeans and Hokas!
martianfrog@reddit
I wouldn't get in to one of those. Oops will I be downvoted for that, I wonder...
Computer_Name@reddit
The white-top livery is 👌
TypicalRecon@reddit
White top anything is pretty, C-5s look good in it and 135s.
KickFacemouth@reddit
If you squint at the Kuwaiti C-17, you can imagine it's a USAF one in the MAC scheme.
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
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quesoandcats@reddit
Yeah, god, that’s really slick
dabarak@reddit
I had the chance to fly in an Osprey in July, 2023. I was a photojournalist and I had a chance to go to sea overnight on my old ship, USS Carl Vinson. (I was a Viking sensor operator way back in the 1980s.) I rode the ship out with a few other photographers, and the next day we flew back to NAS North Island. The flight was uneventful, pretty much like any military helicopter ride. I feel asleep for awhile.
But something funny was one of the passengers. There were two lieutenant commander Hornet pilots on the flight. One of them didn't look old enough to shave - seriously - and during much of the time I was awake he was busy picking his nose - seriously again - in front of about a dozen other people. Oh, how I wish he'd been a Marine. (Just kidding, jar heads).
Cellpool_@reddit
You couldnt get me to fly in an osprey if you paid me lmfao
TybrosionMohito@reddit
That’s ok I’ll take ur seat
epong98989@reddit
Rip UR_WRONG_ABOUT_V22. Guy fought the V22 fight to the very end.
reddituserperson1122@reddit
How long till he adds one of these to his collection?
Tsundare_Mai@reddit
What a life
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Aeromarine_eng@reddit (OP)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/albums/72177720332961365/
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/55199506523
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/55199324306/
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