The V-22 will not likely return to unrestricted flight operations until the middle of next year, Vice Adm. Carl Chebi, the head of Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), said on June 12.
“Today, we are methodically looking at material and non-material changes that we can make to allow for a full mission set without controls in place,” Chebi told the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability’s national security, the border, and foreign affairs subcommittee.
“I will not certify the V-22 to return to unrestricted flight operations until I am satisfied that we have sufficiently addressed the issues that may affect the safety of the aircraft,” he said. “Based on the data I have today, I am expecting this will not occur before mid-2025. In parallel, I have launched a comprehensive review of the V-22 program. This effort is ongoing and will ensure we are holistically looking at all aspects of the program across manning, training, and equipping and proactively identifying additional actions outside of mishap reviews that enable safe, reliable, and affordable flight operations.”
While NAVAIR approved a return to flight with safety controls in place–such as flights within 30 minutes of an airport–for the U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 and U.S. Navy CMV-22 on March 8, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), is taking a phased approach to resumption of CV-22 flights (Defense Daily, May 6).
A Bell [TXT]/Boeing [BA] team builds the V-22.
Chebi said on June 12 that V-22s other than the CV-22 have had 7,000 flight hours since March 8.
19 “hard clutch engagements” that may lead to loss of control of the V-22 have occurred for several years, but a big jump in 2022, including a dual hard clutch engagement that led to a fatal MV-22 crash on June 8, 2022 in Glamis, Calif., led the V-22 program to implement clutch replacements after 800 flight hours, Chebi said on June 12.
“The failure mode that we have seen, even though we have never been able to repeat the failure in test, is called a ‘wear out mode,'” he said in response to a question from Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas), an Air Force veteran. “Over time, the clutch wears out and has a higher susceptibility to slipping, which will cause a hard clutch event. Based on that data, in March 2023, I grounded the fleet and mandated that all aircraft will remove clutches that have over 800 hours. That has been completed, and we have flown numerous hours since then without a hard clutch event.”
“I want to make this point clear though,” Chebi testified. “That has not eliminated the risk. We are in testing of a follow-on design for the clutch to minimize the exposure and eliminate this from occurring again.”
A fleet grounding occurred again after eight airmen died in a CV-22 crash off Japan on Nov. 29 last year. Chebi testified that last Dec. 6 “data was presented to myself that indicated that the platform had experienced a catastrophic material failure that we have never seen before in the V-22 program.”
Military officials have not provided detailed insights on the component failure that led to that crash.
Chebi said that the V-22 fleet overall has a Class A mishap rate of 4.1 per 100,000 flight hours–higher than the average Class A rate for other U.S. military aircraft, but the MV-22 has a lower 3.29 per 100,000 flight hours rate.
The higher Class A mishap rate for the CV-22 “is an important discriminator and one that ought to be discussed more openly.” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the panel.
Chebi said on June 12 that V-22 crashes have killed 64 and injured 93 over the life of the program.