MV22B Crash - Off Coast Darwin - 26 Aug 23
Cpl. Spencer R. Collart, 21, of Arlington, Virginia, MV-22B Osprey crew chief.
Capt. Eleanor V. LeBeau, 29, of Belleville, Illinois, MV-22B Osprey pilot.
Maj. Tobin J. Lewis, 37, of Jefferson, Colorado, Executive Officer of VMM-363.
Makes a very interesting read. Absolutely no idea if there is any relevance in this case but worth a look.
https://www.angelfire.com/me/swissai...ortexRing.html
That Assym VR Conundrum
I ran into that VR hex three times while on helos, and each time was more alarming than the last. Once in day VFR at low-level, On each occasion, landing downwind due to the LZ's limitations (UH-1D). Twice during Night Dust-off (UH-1H) with limitations on the approach direction. I resolved never to ever do a downwind approach again unless unavoidable. Only a collective drop and a fast forward cyclic reaction can ever retrieve the situation. It's much like the fabled "retreating blade stall". You get told about it but never believe it until it happens to you (I was bored and bird-dogging a fast-moving fox at the time)... and only a habit of not firming up the collective friction saved me when the G and rapid roll-rate came on (UH-1B)... and the collective naturally dropped. Such evolutions can never be taught. The Osprey solution for AssymVR I spelled out on one of those follow-on pages in that link. I doubt that it will ever be incorporated, but it would be a life-saver for a people-carrier..
I am aware of the VRS issues with Osprey, and the test flying done after the crash in Arizona to get a better grip on it.
VRS is also an issue for helicopters.
So your point is....what?
ASRAAMTO: indeed.
Safety is rated in accidents per flight hour, only published data I can find is the USAF. In USAF service the V-22 has 6 class A incidents every 100 000 flight hours. Compared to H-60's at 3.36. Looking at most of the fixed wings they were around 3 with the one exception the C-130 which was 0.8. So no its not a death trap but its also not a great compared to other aircraft
How does that inform your unimpressive analysis?
Last edited by Lonewolf_50; 29th Aug 2023 at 17:01.
Loanwolf, I also saw something recently that - while the Osprey had issues early on, if you look at the accident/incident rate for the last 10 years, it's actually better than any of the Army's rotary wing assets.
Loansharks, on the other hand, have no such scruples.
As to the content of your post, I guess I was too vague with "it's a mature system" so thanks for the insight.
( suspect that the Navy Safety Center or NAVAIR had the per 100k rates for all naval aircraft by period, though I've not been to their web site of late.
(PS: Loren THompson made that observation back in 2011. "In the last ten years, the V-22 has the lowest mishap rate of any Marine Corps aircraft).
MarineCorpTimes Jul 20, 2022
(In reponse to the emergence of a video of the fatal crash of a USMC MV-22 on USS Green Bay on Aug 5, 2017)
(In reponse to the emergence of a video of the fatal crash of a USMC MV-22 on USS Green Bay on Aug 5, 2017)
Marine Maj. Jorge Hernandez, spokesman for Marine aviation, wrote in an email response to Marine Corps Times.
Hernandez wrote that the entire Marine aviation community continues to refine all elements of MV-22 operations and use, “specifically applying lessons learned from previous mishaps.”
Several media outlets have noted the history of the Osprey and fatal crashes and nonfatal mishaps. Since initial flights in 1989 with prototype aircraft, at least 51 military members have died in connection with mishaps or crashes involving the Osprey.
Hernandez provided larger context regarding data on Marine aviation, noting that only in the past decade the aircraft has flown more than 420,000 flight hours, more than half of that in the past five years.
“The 10-year average mishap rate for MV-22′s is 3.16 per 100,000 flight hours,” Hernandez wrote on July 8.
For comparison, that rate is lower than the AV-8 Harrier jet, variants of the F/A-18 Super Hornet, the F-35B fighter jet and the CH-53E Super Stallion. The 3.16 Osprey mishap rate is near the total Marine aviation platform average of 3.1 per 100,000 flight hours, the major wrote.
The Osprey aircraft, Hernandez wrote, flies nearly double the hours of the Corps’ other rotary wing platforms. The major called the aircraft the “workhorse” of the service’s assault support community, with capabilities far exceeding the CH-46, which it has supplanted for most missions.
Hernandez wrote that the entire Marine aviation community continues to refine all elements of MV-22 operations and use, “specifically applying lessons learned from previous mishaps.”
Several media outlets have noted the history of the Osprey and fatal crashes and nonfatal mishaps. Since initial flights in 1989 with prototype aircraft, at least 51 military members have died in connection with mishaps or crashes involving the Osprey.
Hernandez provided larger context regarding data on Marine aviation, noting that only in the past decade the aircraft has flown more than 420,000 flight hours, more than half of that in the past five years.
“The 10-year average mishap rate for MV-22′s is 3.16 per 100,000 flight hours,” Hernandez wrote on July 8.
For comparison, that rate is lower than the AV-8 Harrier jet, variants of the F/A-18 Super Hornet, the F-35B fighter jet and the CH-53E Super Stallion. The 3.16 Osprey mishap rate is near the total Marine aviation platform average of 3.1 per 100,000 flight hours, the major wrote.
The Osprey aircraft, Hernandez wrote, flies nearly double the hours of the Corps’ other rotary wing platforms. The major called the aircraft the “workhorse” of the service’s assault support community, with capabilities far exceeding the CH-46, which it has supplanted for most missions.
The angelfire site is interesting reading, and some of the subject would be am worthwhile modelling task on Wayne Johnsons CAMRAD II software by NASA and the USMC. The lateral roll rates are normally not that high, but it is true that the anti roll input will increase the potential for recirculation from the instantaneous increase in the outflow velocity before the roll rate starts to reduce. As a percentage additive of the total flow conditions they are relatively small however, so are aggravating but I would doubt that they cause the problem if a VRS condition is being approached already.
The following 2 users liked this post by fdr:
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
“Captain LeBeau, originally from Illinois, was piloting the aircraft when it crashed. She has been commended for managing to land the aircraft in such a way that the 20 other personnel on board survived.”
Vale to the Marines lost in the Osprey crash.
Captain LeBeau, originally from Illinois, was piloting the aircraft when it crashed. She has been commended for managing to land the aircraft in such a way that the 20 other personnel on board survived.
Vale to the Marines lost in the Osprey crash.
Captain LeBeau, originally from Illinois, was piloting the aircraft when it crashed. She has been commended for managing to land the aircraft in such a way that the 20 other personnel on board survived.
Question - if the accident occurred on take off (which some seem to be suggesting) the crew chief would possibly be seated or standing near the front of the aircraft - is that right?
All three fatalities were crew members and yet all pax survived - I am wondering if there was a nose down impact.
She is already publicly being commended for flying the aircraft in a way that averted more casualties.
All three fatalities were crew members and yet all pax survived - I am wondering if there was a nose down impact.
She is already publicly being commended for flying the aircraft in a way that averted more casualties.
Current Marine document gives the following seating for crew chief and 24 troops, obviously the crew chief sits in the rear cabin, might though he be standing restrained by a monkey belt if giving clearance for take off, landing or operating the ramp?
Video suggest crew chief on the ramp with monkey belt for take off and landing.
Video suggest crew chief on the ramp with monkey belt for take off and landing.
Last edited by megan; 30th Aug 2023 at 03:41.
Lonewolf 50Not suggesting that the Melville Island accident was related to AssymVR, however many others have been, ever since the first deadly MV22 night-time accident at Marana Arizona in APRIL 2000 that killed 19 Marines. No 2 in that flight of four V22's also had a very hard landing with minor injuries (it had extricated itself from the incipient condition). It's all in Wikipedia (which also excises the term "asymmVR"). Vortex ring was admitted but the AsymmVR term never passed the lips or pens of the investigators. It was quite a denial IMHO. Gen McCorkle was the chief advocate of the MV22 at that time. Or maybe it was just a prudent suppression of an off-putting fact for an airplane that the Corps had committed to. Howsoever, they began training against it by severely limiting the flight regime for approach descent rates (the stable approach criteria were quite strict - but would it work in combat scenarios?). The next fatal V22 crash was 18 months later at Jacksonville NC. Readers of Air Safety Week at the time (post Marana) queried why my proposed solution shouldn't be implemented. It comes down to similar prevailing commercial circumstances as underlied the 737Max MCAS glitch. Boeing was aware of the issue, but didn't want to surface it... for well-known reasons. In hindsight, that prevarication proved to be a bad decision. That V22 panic button suggested later (in the final pages of that ongoing Angelfire link above) would have been a life-saver... even for instantly extricating from deadly dust-storms... and one engine-out recovery fiascos.
In a career that stretched from my mid-teens to fulltime reservist QFI training of AFTS grads up to Wings standard in my mid-60's, I always took a very pessimistic approach to accident potentials and the unexpected gotchas that can getcha. However, as time went on, I grew to realize that you cannot avoid the odd situation that appears from nowhere. I flew my first 2 engine approach in a 4 engine airplane as a 19 year old with few hours on type, but luckily the two outed engines were on opposite sides. Yet this was complicated by the one good recip backfiring badly as the copilot hadn't done his RH seat conversion yet and failed to adjust the cowl flaps for climb power. ATC was unhelpful with a "Runway occupied, go round" - but I didn't comply. You just don't in those circumstances, nor do you argue the toss. We squeezed it in. If you had to conceive a worst nightmare situation for a Huey pilot, it would be a tail-rotor drive-shaft failure in a high hover with two on their way down on the hoist. Just when do you chop their cable? We finessed it and got out a Mayday before we hit - and they flew the airplane out the next day. In a turboprop trainer, what's the worst that could ever happen to you? Ejection through a bird-toughened non-jettisonable LDC-covered canopy. The first chap to try that ejection way out, a few months earlier, lost both his femoral arteries and drowned in the North Sea. What's the 2nd worst scenario? Losing a prop-seal and having the entire canopy covered with a thickening coating of non-opaque oil. That was a challenging introduction to the virtues of lateral thinking - with the lateral being an extreme oil-thinning side-slip. It was runway insightful, even if a bit one-sided. What do you do when you lower a crewman into a triple-canopy jungle after an O-2 Push-pull FAC has been shot down and he wanders off to the wreck to look for survivors...without a radio. The air was quite full of Willie-Pete smoke from the FAC's underwing target-marking rocket armament. He didn't find any survivors but neither could he locate where he'd tied off his strop. He could hear us above, but that wasn't much help due all that thick foliage and smoke. After a very long time in the hover, during which the copilot backed the tail into tree foliage, it gradually became a real existential moral quandary. How could you ever explain or justify leaving him there? Do you fire a Verey cartridge into the foliage beneath? Lots of scope for lateral thinking. Luckily the 20 minute fuel light illuminated just after we got him back onboard. I took the USAF body recovery team out the next day after the area was secured by a LRRP 10man fighting patrol, and made sure that they all had radios and flare-pistols. After-thoughts are forever destined to be just that. What do you do when your compass fails during a long-range drop-tanked navex in the middle of a featureless Saudi desert? The StrikeMaster (like all other aircraft) has an E2A wet compass, but if it's quite turbulent at all levels and the weather is mucky, it's next to useless and you are quite loathe to climb into the thick clouds and hope for later radar assistance/recovery. That may have ultimately and potentially been a silken terminal letdown. Luckily my Saudi student's family lived in a desert encampment, he often drove his 4WD out there and he was quite happy at low-level. He could identify prominent sand-dune ridges by their mutual orientation, even with the wind whipping up a sandy poor visibility. So I let him have his head for a suggested way back. It was ridgy-didge perfect, the way he found his way home. Tap-tap.
The moral of this long-winded story is that "wise after the event" is always destined to be disappointing. If an airplane or system has a known flaw, then rather than living with it, you should fix it. Before I became a Squadron Safety Officer, I answered the annual questionnaire on "what and where" the next squadron accident would happen. I suggested "having the Duty pilot solo ferry aircraft just freshly out of the maintenance hangar into a nearby narrow PSP revetment". That occurred, as predicted, the following week. As it happened, without a word of a lie, that Duty Pilot's name was Ono. Not his fault really as the gunship version of a HUEY was necessarily that much wider. The CO had a fit ... but Ono hadn't.
In a career that stretched from my mid-teens to fulltime reservist QFI training of AFTS grads up to Wings standard in my mid-60's, I always took a very pessimistic approach to accident potentials and the unexpected gotchas that can getcha. However, as time went on, I grew to realize that you cannot avoid the odd situation that appears from nowhere. I flew my first 2 engine approach in a 4 engine airplane as a 19 year old with few hours on type, but luckily the two outed engines were on opposite sides. Yet this was complicated by the one good recip backfiring badly as the copilot hadn't done his RH seat conversion yet and failed to adjust the cowl flaps for climb power. ATC was unhelpful with a "Runway occupied, go round" - but I didn't comply. You just don't in those circumstances, nor do you argue the toss. We squeezed it in. If you had to conceive a worst nightmare situation for a Huey pilot, it would be a tail-rotor drive-shaft failure in a high hover with two on their way down on the hoist. Just when do you chop their cable? We finessed it and got out a Mayday before we hit - and they flew the airplane out the next day. In a turboprop trainer, what's the worst that could ever happen to you? Ejection through a bird-toughened non-jettisonable LDC-covered canopy. The first chap to try that ejection way out, a few months earlier, lost both his femoral arteries and drowned in the North Sea. What's the 2nd worst scenario? Losing a prop-seal and having the entire canopy covered with a thickening coating of non-opaque oil. That was a challenging introduction to the virtues of lateral thinking - with the lateral being an extreme oil-thinning side-slip. It was runway insightful, even if a bit one-sided. What do you do when you lower a crewman into a triple-canopy jungle after an O-2 Push-pull FAC has been shot down and he wanders off to the wreck to look for survivors...without a radio. The air was quite full of Willie-Pete smoke from the FAC's underwing target-marking rocket armament. He didn't find any survivors but neither could he locate where he'd tied off his strop. He could hear us above, but that wasn't much help due all that thick foliage and smoke. After a very long time in the hover, during which the copilot backed the tail into tree foliage, it gradually became a real existential moral quandary. How could you ever explain or justify leaving him there? Do you fire a Verey cartridge into the foliage beneath? Lots of scope for lateral thinking. Luckily the 20 minute fuel light illuminated just after we got him back onboard. I took the USAF body recovery team out the next day after the area was secured by a LRRP 10man fighting patrol, and made sure that they all had radios and flare-pistols. After-thoughts are forever destined to be just that. What do you do when your compass fails during a long-range drop-tanked navex in the middle of a featureless Saudi desert? The StrikeMaster (like all other aircraft) has an E2A wet compass, but if it's quite turbulent at all levels and the weather is mucky, it's next to useless and you are quite loathe to climb into the thick clouds and hope for later radar assistance/recovery. That may have ultimately and potentially been a silken terminal letdown. Luckily my Saudi student's family lived in a desert encampment, he often drove his 4WD out there and he was quite happy at low-level. He could identify prominent sand-dune ridges by their mutual orientation, even with the wind whipping up a sandy poor visibility. So I let him have his head for a suggested way back. It was ridgy-didge perfect, the way he found his way home. Tap-tap.
The moral of this long-winded story is that "wise after the event" is always destined to be disappointing. If an airplane or system has a known flaw, then rather than living with it, you should fix it. Before I became a Squadron Safety Officer, I answered the annual questionnaire on "what and where" the next squadron accident would happen. I suggested "having the Duty pilot solo ferry aircraft just freshly out of the maintenance hangar into a nearby narrow PSP revetment". That occurred, as predicted, the following week. As it happened, without a word of a lie, that Duty Pilot's name was Ono. Not his fault really as the gunship version of a HUEY was necessarily that much wider. The CO had a fit ... but Ono hadn't.
Makes a very interesting read. Absolutely no idea if there is any relevance in this case but worth a look.
https://www.angelfire.com/me/swissai...ortexRing.html
https://www.angelfire.com/me/swissai...ortexRing.html
VRS is a tired old V-22 boogeyman and red herring that deserves to be left in the past where it belongs.
Its hard to take what's clearly a quarter century old crusade (written in comic sans, no less) very seriously when the subject matter of VRS/AVRS was absolutely thoroughly tested, studied, and addressed to the point where tiltrotors have proven that they are actually less hazardous when it comes to VRS due to the ability to very simply recover without a complex maneuver like Vuichard. Versus helicopters, the tiltrotor ability to positively control pylon angle allows a hugely effective thrust vector shift and shedding of circular wake.
VRS is a tired old V-22 boogeyman and red herring that deserves to be left in the past where it belongs.
VRS is a tired old V-22 boogeyman and red herring that deserves to be left in the past where it belongs.
Does VRS have a place as a discussion item in a departure accident of a V-22? Hard to see how that would be a condition that would be encountered in the normal state of affairs, and the V-22 boundary is benign, the recovery is straightforward, but the consequences of not applying recovery is pretty drastic. Time to put to bed? Not yet, some of the models show bifurcations as is to be expected, but most do not, the models remain useful but not completely accurate at this time.
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https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Agencies/USMC-FOIA/FRR/
The link above is for the USMC report on the dual clutch hard engagement accident in California last year.
Probably not what caused this accident but they do discuss in this report Marine Corps specific safety data related to MV-22 operations. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but the report is worth a read as it does cover some emergency procedures as well as normal procedures for Osprey operations.
FltMech
The link above is for the USMC report on the dual clutch hard engagement accident in California last year.
Probably not what caused this accident but they do discuss in this report Marine Corps specific safety data related to MV-22 operations. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but the report is worth a read as it does cover some emergency procedures as well as normal procedures for Osprey operations.
FltMech
https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Agencies/USMC-FOIA/FRR/
The link above is for the USMC report on the dual clutch hard engagement accident in California last year.
Probably not what caused this accident but they do discuss in this report Marine Corps specific safety data related to MV-22 operations. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but the report is worth a read as it does cover some emergency procedures as well as normal procedures for Osprey operations.
FltMech
The link above is for the USMC report on the dual clutch hard engagement accident in California last year.
Probably not what caused this accident but they do discuss in this report Marine Corps specific safety data related to MV-22 operations. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but the report is worth a read as it does cover some emergency procedures as well as normal procedures for Osprey operations.
FltMech
19. The 10-year average mishap rate for USMC MV-22B is 3.16 per 100,000 flight hours [Encl (7)]
20. The USMC aviation mishap average is 3.1 per 100,000 flight hours, which includes aircraft such as AV-8B, F/A-18A-C, F-35B, CH-53E, and KC-130J. [Encl (7)]
20. The USMC aviation mishap average is 3.1 per 100,000 flight hours, which includes aircraft such as AV-8B, F/A-18A-C, F-35B, CH-53E, and KC-130J. [Encl (7)]
(And that may have nothing to do with the mishap under discussion in this thread).
EDIT: here it is.
Just out of curiosity, bobofh: when you were flying Hueys, when did you first learn not to do a push over and unload the head? An old boss of mine flew Dustoffs (he later saw the light and became a Naval Aviator) and when I asked him about it he said it was common knowledge in his unit, mid to late 60's.
Last edited by Lonewolf_50; 1st Sep 2023 at 15:57.
Unloading the Huey rotor head via pushover.
Hey Lonewolf,
All those Huey's except the Yankee, Zulu, where we designed the rotor head to acceptably handle -.5 G's by eliminating the teetering rotor head. I know you knew that, just stating for clarity.
Otter
All those Huey's except the Yankee, Zulu, where we designed the rotor head to acceptably handle -.5 G's by eliminating the teetering rotor head. I know you knew that, just stating for clarity.
Otter
Yes indeed. Bob had alluded to flying the UH-1B's and Dustoffs, so I was inferring some Viet Nam era experience which would have been Viet Nam era semi-rigid rotor systems.
Good to see you still posting. 
Good to see you still posting.
Check this V280 youtube video for commentary on V22 AsymmVR
..........watch?v=HbriVDMbPXk
in latter final 1/4 of video
Not permltted to post links, so search/look for:
in latter final 1/4 of video
Not permltted to post links, so search/look for:
