Osprey crashes could endanger funding for new tilt-rotor Army aircraft Bell is developing (2024)

WASHINGTON — Fort Worth aerospace manufacturer Bell Textron is developing the Army’s next long-range assault aircraft as part of a major defense contract, but that program could face headwinds resulting from recent fatal crashes of the company’s V-22 Osprey.

Bell pioneered, along with Boeing, the helicopter-airplane hybrid Osprey, assembled at facilities in Amarillo.

The company also went with a tilt-rotor design on its proposed V-280 Valor, which the Army chose last year to replace the iconic UH-60 Black Hawk.

The V-280 beat out the compound rotor Defiant X offered by a collaboration of Boeing and Connecticut-based Sikorsky, which is owned by Lockheed Martin.

Members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation have raised questions about the award process and the safety of tilt-rotor designs. Those concerns could get new life in the wake of several incidents, including a Nov. 29 crash off the coast of Japan that killed all eight airmen on board. The U.S. has grounded the Ospreys as it investigates the cause.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, has raised concerns about tilt-rotor aircraft generally and the Army’s selection process won by the V-280.

“I just continue to have real misgivings about shoveling money into a program that is resulting in this kind of fatality rate,” Murphy told The Dallas Morning News.

Bell has previously defended the Osprey’s safety record, but referred all questions to the Air Force following the Nov. 29 crash.

The Government Accountability Office rejected a Sirkorsky protest of the contract award, which Murphy said means there’s no legal avenue for reversing the award. But he added Congress — and specifically his committee — will determine how much money flows into the program.

Murphy grilled the Secretary of the Army during a May hearing about the contract award, acknowledging his own parochial interest while emphasizing concerns about safety and costs.

He said the Osprey has fallen short of expectations on mission readiness, procurement costs and per-flight price tag. The Bell bid for the new Army aircraft was significantly higher than Sikorsky’s, and costs could keep growing, he said.

In an interview following the November crash, Murphy reiterated his concerns.

“My heart goes out to the individuals and the families affected,” Murphy said. “There’s a pretty troubling record of failure with these aircraft, and this is something I’ve raised with the military consistently. We’ve made a big new commitment to tilt-rotor aircraft, and I hope that that doesn’t come with a fatal price for our soldiers, sailors and airmen.”

Battles over defense contracts can carry political ramifications.

House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger represents Fort Worth, where Bell has its headquarters. Sikorsky is based in Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District, which is represented by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee who has taken issue with the V-280 selection.

The Osprey’s creation followed Operation Eagle Claw, the botched 1980 attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran.

That operation was plagued by a series of mishaps and challenges stemming from the limited capabilities of Vietnam-era Sea Stallion helicopters.

A sandstorm and mechanical problems knocked out three of the eight helicopters before they even reached a staging area, prompting then-President Jimmy Carter to abort the mission.

As they started withdrawing, one of the Sea Stallions collided with a C-130. Eight servicemen died.

The Pentagon decided it needed a new cutting-edge transport, one that could take off vertically like a helicopter, then fly with the speed and range of a traditional propeller plane.

Bell and Boeing got the contracts to perfect the design and put it into production. The program faced challenges and setbacks, with high-profile fatal crashes threatening to shut it down.

After much re-engineering, the Osprey went into operation in 2007 and has since become a workhorse for the military, shuttling troops around and taking on an array of new missions even as production of new aircraft has been winding down.

A series of crashes in the past two years has raised new questions about safety.

Five Marines were killed June 8, 2022, in an Osprey crash in Southern California. Investigators attributed the crash to problems with the clutch, an issue that has plagued Ospreys for at least a decade.

The report on that crash stated the safety record of the Osprey was “consistent with that of other tactical aircraft” flown by the U.S. military.

“The mishap of 8 June 2022 does not statistically invalidate the safety of the platform within the broader context of over 422,000 successful MV22B and CMV-22B flight hours flown in the past 10 years,” according to the report.

Still, the report stated the root cause of the clutch problem remained unknown and was impossible to prevent without improvements to the aircraft and robust inspections.

The military has been working on those improvements even as incidents continue, and Ospreys have been repeatedly grounded.

U.S. military officials have defended the overall safety record of the aircraft after crashes, including one that killed three Marines and injured others onboard during an August training exercise in Australia.

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said at the time that all such incidents are investigated and the safety of military personnel is a priority.

She downplayed the need for a holistic review of the aircraft and cautioned against jumping to conclusions about common causes.

“Every time this happens, of course, we always think about the service members who are putting their lives at risk, but I wouldn’t say that they’re all connected in one way or another,” Singh said.

She said that if crash investigations reveal the need to adjust how the military is using Ospreys, it would do so.

“We do certainly have confidence in the Osprey,” she said.

The V-280 has plenty in common with the Osprey but it’s not identical. It’s smaller and while it also uses a tilt-rotor approach, there are key differences.

Like the Osprey, it can take off and land vertically, then rotate its propellers forward and fly like a plane. But on the V-280, the entire engine doesn’t rotate, just the gearboxes and prop-rotors.

It’s unclear exactly how many jobs will flow from the contract, or where they will be located, but Bell has been pushing forward on new facilities in the D-FW area since winning the award.

That includes registering plans with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation to construct a $20 million, 37,775-square-foot building in Grand Prairie.

Bell says it is making progress on the contract and recently completed required reviews to “ensure that we are developing the capability our warfighter needs.”

Construction on the new Grand Prairie facility is on track to be finished by late March and become operational in 2025, the company says.

Army officials said in a statement that they don’t anticipate any impact on the contract awarded to Bell in December 2022 from the recent crash.

“Safety remains a top priority and the Army will ensure the utmost rigor and discipline in the design, development and qualification of the FLRAA aircraft,” according to the statement, referring to the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program.

Gregory Sanders, deputy director and fellow at the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed the crash is unlikely to jeopardize the new contract unless the investigation reveals a fundamental flaw across all tilt-rotor designs.

The Defense Department has a demanding testing and evaluation process, Sanders said, and officials in charge of overseeing the new program will scrutinize the investigation results.

“Given the longstanding nature of these concerns, I imagine that the evolutionary changes to existing development and testing plans — rather than large shifts— are most likely,” Sanders said.