Two reports released recently by the Air Force detail the terrible, horrible, no-good very bad week of an Air Force CV-22 Osprey squadron at Cannon Air Force Base last year. In the span of five days, the 20th Special Operations Squadron at Cannon, New Mexico, which flies the Osprey, suffered two mishaps involving three of its CV-22 fleet, one a parking accident on the ground, the other a freak accidental engine shutdown that caused one of the $92 million aircraft to crash on a remote range.
The accidents occurred on Aug. 17 and 22, 2023 and had not been previously disclosed until the accident reports for both were released last week by Air Force Special Operations Command. There were no fatalities in either event. One crew member on the crashed Osprey suffered a concussion and associated injuries.
That second and more serious accident was the result of a bizarre series of events in an Osprey’s cockpit that even the Air Force investigators emphasized was “unintentional and unknowing.” As a crew member switched seats — a routine mid-flight event on Ospreys — a battery cable from their helmet’s night vision goggles snagged on the control lever for the plane’s right engine, and pulled it to “OFF,” just as the pilots were pulling out of a hover during gunnery practice.
The plane immediately fell to the ground, though power from the second still-running engine slowed its descent enough to spare the crew from serious injury.
The first mishap came five days earlier when a taxiing Osprey’s blades, which are known as proprotors, struck the blades of a second Osprey parked on the flightline of an airfield near the Navy’s sprawling China Lake range in California.
Both accidents, Air Force investigations found, were caused by human error. Neither were associated with the known mechanical issue in the plane’s transmission that has caused a series of fatal crashes in recent years.
Havoc 54 engine shutdown
In the more serious accident in late August 2023, an Osprey from the 20th SOS, flying as ‘Havoc 54,’ took off as part of a two-ship training flight, according to the final Accident Investigation Board Report. The crew had two goals: deliver a ground team of terminal air control operators riding along to a shooting range, and get the flying qualifications up to date for several flight engineers on board, which included a round of aerial gunnery, firing the plane’s GAU-21 .50 caliber machine gun at targets on the ground.
Though a normal Air Force Osprey flight crew is four flyers — two pilots and two flight engineers — a third flight engineer was on board to take a turn shooting for skill currency. As a result, the three flight engineers planned to rotate several times during the flight, switching between the rear ramp, where one engineer would shoot as another acted as instructor, while a third would available for flight duties.
Similar rotations and on-the-fly requalifications of duty positions are normal across all military flying.
After dropping off the ground team, according to the report, the Havoc 54 crew held a brief air-to-ground firing session on the base’s “Jockey” range. But with dwindling fuel, the crew skipped making gun passes and instead decided to fire on the small range from a hover. Hovering is considered a “critical phase of flight,” the report said, requiring closer attention to risk factors by all crew members.
As the shooting finished, the co-pilot transitioned the plane out of its hover, calling for the landing gear to be pulled up and pushing the plane forward and upwards — an unremarkable maneuver but one that leaves little margin for error in terms of power needed by the engines. But as the plane began to move, one of the flight engineers moved into the cockpit to assume the engineer’s seat. Unknown to him or anyone in the crew, as the engineer maneuvered into his seat, a cable from his night vision goggles caught on the right Engine Control Lever lever in the Osprey’s ceiling.
As the engineer moved his head, the cable pulled the lever from “Fly” to “Off” — instantly shutting down the engine, just as the plane needed it the most.
The plane immediately plunged toward the earth, as the pilots tried to understand what had just happened. As a warning sounded, the co-pilot pushed the plane’s throttles to full power and announced over the intercom:
“Power’s all in. Power’s all in, bird’s coming down.”
The instruments onboard the plane recorded the final seconds of the flight: the Osprey’s fall reached almost 15 miles per hour, but 10 feet before it hit, the pilot flared the plane’s nose, reducing the impact by about a third. The plane hit, bounced four feet back into the air, then hit harder, skidding 360 feet as various equipment ripped off its fuselage.
In all, the report found, the plane suffered about $2 million in damage.
The crew’s seats absorbed the impact with no injuries, except the flight engineer who unwittingly caused the accident. Not buckled into his chair, he was thrown forward, while his helmet — still hooked to the lever — was ripped off.
Without a helmet, the engineer struck his head on the Osprey’s dashboard, suffering a concussion.
But in a final unlikely twist, in the jerk of the impact, his helmet moved the engine lever forward, back into the flying position.
The investigation only confirmed that the lever had been moved — killing the engine — by analyzing the plane’s flight data, which keeps an electronic log of the position of the levers.
The final accident report, written by board President Col. Patrick DuBe, 492nd Special Operations Wing deputy commander, ended with a clear if caveated placement of blame, finding by “a preponderance of the evidence the cause for the mishap is attributed to (the flight engineer) unintentionally and unknowingly shutting down the right engine.”
Investigators faulted the aircraft’s pilot — who had turned over control of the plane to the co-pilot — for not guarding the levers with his hand when the flight engineer entered the cockpit. The report said that technique was a common procedure among experienced flyers, though mostly done when pilots were switching seats, rather than flight engineers. The report said that several of the crew interviewed during the investigation were aware that a helmet cable could get caught on flight controls, but none recalled it ever happening.
Abram 13 Parking accident
Five days before the Havoc 53 crash, the 20th SOS was deployed to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California for two weeks of training when an Osprey returning from an early flight taxied too close to a second one, striking the propellers of the two while turning into a tight parking spot. The investigation, headed by Col. Jeff McMaster, the 27th SOW deputy commander, blamed the plane’s pilot for failing to note how close the second aircraft was and the squadron’s maintenance crew for not following proper marshaling rules.
On the morning that the squadron was scheduled to fly home, a crew took an Osprey for a maintenance check flight, using the call sign Abram 13. Returning to Inyokern Airfield, a civilian airport adjacent to the Navy range, the crew taxied to the ramp where the unit’s planes had been parked during the deployment, a cracking sheet of concrete at the end of the small runway.
Though taxiing rules are strict around Ospreys, the cracked asphalt and tight quarters of the ramp had made marshaling duties difficult for maintainers. While Air Force rules require both a “walker” off of the Osprey’s nose and “wing walkers” in tight flight lines, the 20th SOS ground crew had abandoned the front walker position for the second week of the deployment because the loose concrete kicked up by Ospreys had become dangerous.
Those on the wings, the report found, did not use proper signals as they marshaled Abram 13 into position.
While making a left turn into a tight parking spot, the co-pilot at the controls cut the turn too soon. The plane’s pilot, observing the turn out the left window, saw that the angle of the turn was bringing the aircraft close to a parked Osprey, but did not speak up.
The rotors of the plane impacted the second Osprey’s, causing a combined $2.5 million in damage between the two planes.
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