Osprey has had a troubled past

By Dave Moniz, USA TODAY

In the long history of Rasputin-like, hard-to-kill defense programs, the Marine Corps' MV-22 Osprey may hold a special distinction.

Twenty years in development, the helicopter- airplane hybrid has survived spiraling costs, a defense secretary's ax and three deadly crashes. Now a budding scandal over false information about its performance record raises new questions about its survival.

Recent allegations about falsified maintenance logs have placed the troubled Osprey further in jeopardy, even as its defenders argue that tilt-rotor technology is something the Marines must have to fight 21st century battles.

The gangly Osprey is designed to land and take off like a helicopter but fly like an airplane. In recent years, the MV-22, as it is technically known, has become the Marine Corps' top priority.

Much is riding on what happens in the weeks and months ahead, when the Marines will learn whether the $30 billion program continues to have congressional support and the backing of new Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Multiple challenges

To save the Osprey, observers say, the Marines will need to overcome a public relations nightmare, make a case that it is safe and better explain why they must have it.

Says one Marine Corps colonel who has doubts about the aircraft's safety: "I don't want my son in an Osprey until Dick Cheney rides in one."

Vice President Cheney tried to kill the Osprey more than a decade ago when he headed the Pentagon under the elder President Bush.

The Osprey's fate is wobbly following revelations that a squadron commander, Lt. Col. O. Fred Leberman, asked Marines to falsify maintenance documents. The Defense Department has taken over investigation of the allegations from the Marines.

In relieving Leberman of command last week, the Marines watched a list of marks against the aircraft grow. Two of the Marines' 10 MV-22s crashed last year, killing 23 Marines. In more than 4,000 hours of flight testing, the Osprey has experienced four crashes, three of which were fatal.

The first two MV-22 mishaps occurred in 1992. One, involving a mechanical failure, killed seven Marines.

Defenders of the aircraft note that the Marines went eight years between Osprey crashes, and commanders stress that any aircraft under development experiences fatal accidents.

Revolutionary technology

With the ability to tilt its propellers upward, take off like a helicopter and zoom great distances when configured as an airplane, the MV-22 is touted as revolutionary.

Marine Corps commanders say they will be able to rescue hostages, fetch downed pilots and fight deep into enemy territory. Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle, who heads up aviation for the Marine Corps, says the $43 million-a-copy MV-22 is a magnificent machine.

"I think we're going to get it. It's going to happen, the technology is here," McCorkle said in an interview two weeks ago, before the recent maintenance allegations surfaced.

James Furman, a Texas attorney who represents the family of an Osprey pilot killed in a crash last April, describes the MV-22 as poorly tested and vulnerable to ground fire while in helicopter mode. Furman, a former Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam, says the speed at which the Osprey can land is much too slow, and the aircraft is more susceptible to crashes than backers will admit.

"Certain elements in the Marine Corps are so success-oriented in this program, they are not seeing the flies in the ointment," Furman said.

Major weapons programs, even if flawed, historically have been difficult to cancel once they near the end of developmental testing.

John Persinos, editor in chief of the helicopter trade magazine Rotor & Wing does not count himself among the program's doubters. But he says that while the Osprey may offer revolutionary technology, it could be in deep trouble.

"That tape is a smoking gun if there ever was one," Persinos said, referring to a recently released recording of Leberman asking subordinates to lie about the Opsrey's maintenance troubles.

"Part of the problem is industry and the Defense Department's penchant for secrecy and not being forthright," Persinos said. "Once they have certain congressmen on their side, they think they can just ram these programs through.

"Tilt-rotor technology is impressive and worthwhile, but industry hasn't built broad public support for it," he says.

The Marines carry enormous political clout in Congress, and it does not hurt the MV-22's prospects that it is manufactured in Philadelphia and Fort Worth by defense giants Boeing and Bell Helicopter.

One Pentagon official who believes the Marine rank and file are under stress to support the program says, "Anyone who says there is no command pressure to suppress information about the Osprey is full of crap. Marines have told me they have been pressured."

The Osprey was conceived in the Reagan era, when Pentagon budgets were fat and the Marines sought a replacement for the reliable but Vietnam vintage CH-53 and CH-46 helicopters.

Weighing 33,000 pounds, with a top speed of more than 300 miles per hour, the Osprey was designed to fly four times as far as the helicopters it was replacing. Because it can carry 24 combat-ready Marines, the Osprey is touted as a way for ship-launched Marines to go much farther and much faster than ever.

Some believe the Marines have placed a near-messianic faith in the Osprey. The service's future tactics for operating at sea are dependent on the Marines buying 360 MV-22s, even though there is no certainty they will ever get the first one.

Lack of options?

When asked whether the Marines Corps' zeal for the MV-22 had potentially clouded its judgment, McCorkle responded, "I don't think so."

"If there's an airplane out there that's better, then we ought to buy it," he said.

The Osprey program is being evaluated by a separate "blue ribbon" Pentagon panel, and a decision on whether the Defense Department should begin full production of the aircraft has been put on hold.

The April 2000 crash in Arizona highlighted what some see as a large unknown: Can the Marines train pilots effectively to fly an aircraft that is both a helicopter and an airplane?

The Marines concluded that the April 2000 crash in Arizona, which killed 19 Marines, was caused by pilot error. The MV-22 that crashed during a training exercise was attempting to land at a rate of descent — about 2,000 feet per minute — much faster than is considered safe. A resulting "vortex ring state" phenomenon, a sudden loss of lift and control of the aircraft, caused it to plunge to earth.

Critics wonder whether the Arizona crash foreshadows trouble when the Osprey enters real combat zones. The idea of landing large numbers of Marines deep into enemy territory evokes in some minds the image of the 1993 debacle in Somalia.

There, rag-tag rebels shot down two Army Black Hawk helicopters with rocket-propelled grenades, a cheap weapon found in even the poorest countries.