Japan has no immediate plans to fly its fleet of V-22 Ospreys after the U.S. Air Force announced a safety stand-down for the tilt-rotor aircraft over a mechanical issue. The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force will inspect its nine Ospreys stationed at Camp Kisarazu in Chiba prefecture and request information from its industry partners. The ministry does not have a date for when the Ospreys will resume operations.
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The Ospreys have been deployed temporarily to Camp Kisarazu since 2020, according to the spokesman. The government plans to acquire 17 V-22s, which will be based at Saga Airport, by 2025, according to the Ministry of Defense.
Japan’s Ospreys last flew on Aug. 9 with no further flights planned when Air Force Special Operations Command ordered a safety stand-down on Aug. 16, the spokesman said. The Air Force indefinitely grounded its 54 CV-22 Ospreys, including a squadron at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo, based on a problem with the clutch inside a gearbox that connects one of the Osprey’s two Rolls Royce engines to the propeller rotor.
The Marine Corps continues to fly its MV-22 Ospreys, including two squadrons based at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on Okinawa. The Marines have 18 Osprey squadrons with more than 200 of the 360 tiltrotors the Corps originally planned to acquire, according to published reports and a Marine Corps factsheet. A joint venture of Bell Helicopter and Boeing, the V-22 takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a fixed-wing plane. The Air Force employs its version to insert and extricate special operations troops; the Marines use theirs to haul troops and equipment and as assault ships. The Navy took delivery of its Ospreys in February. At least 13 Marines have died in Osprey crashes since 2015, according to published accounts. Four Marines died in March when a Marine Osprey crashed in Norway due to pilot error, according to the Marines. Another five were killed when an Osprey crashed in June in Southern California in an accident still under investigation.