Tuesday December 12 5:37 AM ET Marine Corps Osprey Crashes in North Carolina

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine MV-22 Osprey carrying a crew of four crashed on Monday night in North Carolina, the second crash this year of a tilt-rotor aircraft.

Rescuers reached the crash site in a heavily wooded area about 10 miles north of the Marine Corps New River Air Station in the southeastern part of the state. There was no word on the fate of the crew.

The hybrid helicopter-airplane crashed on a training mission, the Marine Corps said.

The aircraft belongs to the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Training Squadron 204 based at New River. It is among the first of 360 MV-22 Ospreys the Marine Corps plans to buy to replace its aging fleet of transport helicopters.

Another Osprey crashed on a training mission in Arizona last April, killing 19 aboard. That crash was blamed on pilot error.

The $44 million aircraft is designed to take off like a helicopter and fly like an airplane.

The aircraft is built by Boeing and Bell Helicopter, a division of Textron Inc .

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001212/ts/crash_osprey_dc_3.html

-- Carl Jenkins (somewherepress@aol.com), December 12, 2000

Answers

Dec 12, 2000 - 09:42 AM

Marine Aircraft Crashes in North Carolina; Four in Crew Presumed Dead The Associated Press

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (AP) - A Marine Corps tilt-rotor Osprey crashed in a forest during a night flight, killing three crew members. It was the second fatal crash for the new aircraft, which has been grounded twice this year. A fourth crew member was missing and presumed dead, military officials said Tuesday.

The last communication with the aircraft, based at the Marine Corps Air Station at New River, was a mayday call received at the station Monday evening, officials said.

"The rotors got real loud, and it disappeared behind a tree," said Mark Calnan, who lives near the crash site in a southeastern North Carolina forest. "There was an orange flash, a great big one. Then I heard a pop. It crackled like thunder."

Rescue workers had to use a bulldozer to create a path through the trees so they could reach the site about 10 miles north of Jacksonville.

The MV-22 Osprey has tilting rotors that allow it to take off and land like a helicopter and then fly like an airplane.

The Marines are counting on the new aircraft to replace their Vietnam- era fleet of transport helicopters. But some members of Congress have criticized the Osprey program as too expensive and technically flawed.

The Marines' Osprey fleet was grounded for about two months after one crashed in April during a training flight in Arizona, killing all 19 Marines on board. Investigators said that crash was caused by mistakes made by the pilot and co-pilot, not a mechanical problem.

The Corps grounded the Ospreys again in late August after a drive shaft coupling failed in one of the craft based at New River. And another Osprey based at New River Air Station made an unscheduled landing in Wilmington on Nov. 30 after the pilot radioed that he was in trouble.

The Pentagon is still trying to decide whether to authorize full production of the aircraft, which have been flying for a little more than a year.

The Pentagon had been expected to announce soon whether to approve full-scale production. The Osprey is produced by Boeing Co. and Bell Helicopter Textron, and the Marines hope to buy 360 of them for $36 billion.

Marine Capt. James Rich said three bodies were recovered at the site of Monday's crash but have not been identified.

The Osprey's four crew members were: Lt. Col. Keith M. Sweaney, 42, of Richmond, Va.; Maj. Michael L. Murphy, 38, of Blauvelt, N.Y.; Staff Sgt. Avely W. Runnels, 25, of Morven, Ga.; and Sgt. Jason A. Buyck, 24, of Sodus, N.Y. http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA86VJPNGC.html

-- Carl Jenkins (somewherepress@aol.com), December 12, 2000.

Updated: Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2000 at 01:42 CST

Despite the V-22's problems, Amarillo and Bell Helicopter anticipate prosperous alliance By Bob Cox Star-Telegram Staff Writer

AMARILLO -- When Amarillo city officials agreed to spend $40 million to help Bell Helicopter Textron build its V-22 Osprey assembly plant here, they justified it as an investment in a bright economic future for this Panhandle community.

Now, a cloud of uncertainty is obscuring that future, at least temporarily.

The fatal crash of an Osprey on Monday, the second this year, has led to yet another grounding of the Marines' small fleet of the tilt- rotor aircraft. It also means an indefinite delay in Pentagon approval for full production.

Bell and Amarillo officials were eagerly anticipating the decision to step up production, which would have meant a big increase in jobs at the V-22 final assembly plant.

Mayor Kel Seliger says he's still hopeful, however, about the long- term outlook for the V-22 and Bell's Amarillo plant.

"Whenever a local employer has some sort of adverse circumstances, you're always concerned, but it hasn't got to the point we're worried about the plant closing," Seliger said Tuesday.

"You have to take a very long-term view," he added.

It was that long-term view that persuaded Amarillo to make Bell an offer the company could hardly refuse when it was looking for a V-22 plant site two years ago.

Seliger said city officials wanted to recruit a manufacturing company to the area, which is heavily dependent on farming, beef packing, and the oil and gas industries. Amarillo has an unemployment rate of under 4 percent.

So when Bell officials held out the carrot of an aircraft assembly plant that would eventually employ 1,200 or more workers in high- paying jobs, Amarillo officials responded.

The city offered the use of 184 acres of industrial land adjacent to its airport and agreed to a $40 million bond issue to finance construction of the assembly plant and flight test facilities.

Bell received lucrative lease terms, with its annual rent based on the number of jobs created. In some years it could pay little or no rent. After 20 years, the company can buy the facility for just $1.

"I think it's been a very good deal so far," Seliger said. "They currently employ 281 people. They are breaking new ground in terms of manufacturing efficiency."

Bell is happy, too. Dwight Byars, vice president of tilt-rotor operations and the top Bell official at the plant, told reporters on a plant tour recently that the company has had a "love fest" with Amarillo.

"There's not been a time here when we needed support that we didn't snap our fingers and they were there," Byars said. "Sometimes it was when we were ready to snap our fingers."

Bell moved into the new 150,000-square-foot assembly plant and 72,000- square-foot flight test complex in January. The first two MV-22s built for the Marines in Amarillo have been completed and are in flight testing, and several others are in various stages of assembly.

Despite having to recruit and train almost all the workers at the plant, Byars said the quality of the aircraft built in Amarillo so far has been "what you would expect to see from a really seasoned work force."

Thousands of people had expressed interest in jobs at the plant long before it opened, he said. The state put up $2.7 million for training. And Amarillo College has begun an aerospace training program that, to date, has produced 44 graduates who were hired by Bell.

Byars said Bell has also been able to hire experienced aircraft mechanics from as far away as Lubbock with the promise of stable jobs, good pay and innovative work schedules. The plant runs two shifts that work four, 10-hour days, and one shift working three 12- hour days.

The average wage at the Amarillo plant is now $14.61 an hour, compared with an average of more than $19 an hour at Bell's Fort Worth-area facilities.

But Bell officials say they didn't move to Amarillo to get lower wages or a nonunion work force. What they wanted, Byars said, was a chance to design a plant and train a work force that could build aircraft more efficiently than any plant the company now operates.

Under low-rate production contracts already issued by the Pentagon, Bell is scheduled to deliver seven V-22s this year, including the first two built in Amarillo, and up to nine more next year.

A decision on a full-rate production contract was initially to have been made last week, but was delayed after a Pentagon report that said the V-22s have been unreliable for sustained use so far because of the high maintenance required to keep the complex aircraft flying.

The V-22 can take off and land like a helicopter and fly like an airplane. The Marines want to buy more than 300 to replace helicopters for transporting troops and equipment into combat.

But a top Marine Corps officer said Tuesday that the decision to go ahead with full production has been delayed indefinitely after Monday night's crash near Jacksonville, N.C., which killed four Marines including the corps' most experienced V-22 pilot.

Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle, deputy commandant for aviation, said the other eight aircraft were grounded pending an investigation of the crash. He said Secretary of Defense William Cohen will appoint a panel to review the Osprey program before going ahead with further production orders.

http://www.star- telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:HOMEPAGE2/1:HOMEPAGE21213100.html

-- Doris (nocents@bellsouth.net), December 13, 2000.