A military investigation has found that an Osprey crash in Australia that killed three Marines last August was caused by pilot error during a near mid-air collision. It also found that squadron leadership had permitted “a culture that disregarded safety of flight.
This combination of photos provided by U.S. Marines Corps., shows Marine V-22B Osprey pilot Capt. Eleanor V. LeBeau, center, Cpl. Spencer R. Collart, left, and Maj. Tobin J. Lewis, right. The U.S. Marine Corps has released the names of the three Marines killed in a fiery tiltrotor aircraft crash on a north Australia n island this week and said one off their colleagues remained in hospital in a critical condition.
A senior maintenance officer, who was unnamed, was found to be in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for dereliction of duty and for falsely generating and signing a form detailing the aircraft’s weight and loads after the crash. Lewis, the aircraft commander for the downed Osprey, was required to have reviewed that information prior to the flight. Investigators recommended the maintenance officer face administrative or judicial procedures.
The Hawaii-based squadron had been on a high pace of operations on its overseas Australia deployment and may have been overloaded. In the three weeks before the fatal crash the squadron experienced two lesser accidents, including one that was another near-miss that also was tied to weight and load issues, which should have been warning signs, investigators found.
Investigators found both Ospreys had taken on 2,000 pounds more fuel than they had planned for and had only used estimates on how much each of the troops in the back would weigh. The weight of an aircraft plays a critical role in how pilots can safely operate it.
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