MV-22B Crash - Off Coast Darwin - 26 Aug 23
 

Crashed on Melville Island off the coast of Darwin during a military exercise.

At least 20 on board - recovery operation underway

Rescue effort

Some outlets now reporting that a number of people have been rescued from the crash site.

scuttle but is saying 2 serious injuries, the rest minor or walking wounded. No fatalies

Official press conferance. 5 hospitalised, 1 critical

another press conference reports 3 dead

Local Darwin news reporting 23 on board, 3 injures, of whom one is critical, occurred this morning, could have been night hours, only say that because I haven't heard any day light activity, could have been ship based of course. A squadron of MV's have been based in Darwin.

all the media I looked at are now reporting 3 dead as per the defence department press conference
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-...land/102781722

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-66632201

Three US marines have been killed and 20 injured after a military helicopter crashed during exercises in Australia.

The MV-22B Osprey came down on its way to the remote Tiwi islands north of Darwin. Five of the marines are said to be in a serious condition. They were taking part in Predators Run, involving 2,500 troops from the US, Australia, the Philippines, East Timor and Indonesia. Only US personnel were on board the aircraft.

The incident took place on Melville Island north of the Northern Territory capital Darwin on Sunday.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the incident as tragic and said every assistance would be given to the injured.

"Five marines have been returned to Darwin for treatment with the remaining being triaged at the scene," said local police commissioner Michael Murphy. "Additional police and defence personnel have been deployed to Melville Island to support operations, triage injured people and return them to Darwin and also maintain the crash scene while investigations continue."

Anyone hear what VMM squadron it is from?

Such a terrible tragedy. Thoughts are with the families involved.

Given the Osprey has had such a public display in Australia with the recent airshow, was it the same machine with the same callsign involved?

From what I can gather the aircraft and personnel involved are probably from Marine Rotational Force-Darwin. Apart from a brief expression of sympathy by the SECDEF, US Defense/Navy/Marines official websites have noticeably silent on the subject I assume whilst relatives are inforrmed and the facts verified. Also to minimize the potential effect on the relatives of other members of individual units should the relevant units be identified..

MV-22Bs from MRF-D have recently been operating with HMASs Adelaide and Canberra. The USS America ARG with the 31 MEU embarked were involved in the recently concluded Exercise Malabar 2023 off the East Coast.
My thoughts also with those involved and their families, Semper Fi.

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 363 based at Kaneohe Bay supplied 10 aircraft for Marine rotational force darwin.

Thank You.

Press Conference with Australian PM

Remains an Issue
 

http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...-osprey-2.html

bbofh: would you care to elaborate? The Osprey is a mature weapons system. Your link takes us to a thread from 2007. A Blackhawk crashed in Huntsville early this year. Is your brilliant assessment of "remains an issue" to apply to that as well?

For Asturias56
The journo in your linked article referred to the V-22 as a helicopter.
Not your fault, but it's frustrating to see the ignorance on display.

For our three lost bretheren:
Semper Fidelis, and vaya con dios, Marines. :{

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

Being reported locally that one of the deceased is a highly decorated 29YO female, accident occurred during take off.

For LoneWolf 50
Not permitted to post URL's or to PM, but you could try searching angelfire.com for Osprey + "ThatVexingVortexRing.html" and Osprey + /modded/troubledpast.html - on Angelfire.com