Four families of Marines who died in a 2022 V-22 Osprey crash in California have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against military aircraft manufacturers, accusing the companies of failing to disclose known safety issues to the Pentagon.
The federal lawsuit, filed Thursday against Boeing, Bell Textron and Rolls-Royce in California, alleges that the aircraft’s manufacturers “failed to timely, accurately and truthfully inform the government and military service members of the aircraft’s dangers.” .
Bell Textron and Boeing, which manufacture the aircraft, declined to comment on ongoing litigation. Rolls-Royce, which makes Osprey engines, did not respond to a request for comment.
Five Marines died after their MV-22B Osprey crashed east of San Diego during a training mission in June 2022.
Air Force Special Operations Command later discovered that there was a problem with the rigid clutch engagement, where the clutch connecting one of the Osprey’s two engines to the propeller rotor slipped for unknown reasons, forcing the crew to land the aircraft immediately. .
The hybrid aircraft – which climbs vertically like a helicopter before flying horizontally like an airplane and is used by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps – crashed repeatedly throughout its life, killing more than 50 service members. From March 2022 to November 2023, 20 soldiers died in four accidents.
The most recent accident, in November, killed eight Marines when their tiltrotor plane crashed into the sea off the coast of Japan. The accident is still under investigation.
That incident led the US military to ground its entire Osprey fleet for three months and triggered a review of the program, which has not yet been released.
In Thursday’s complaint, the families allege the California crash was caused by two systems that were not fixed, as the companies made “recklessly false statements” about the “unsafe and unseaworthy aircraft.”
“For years, Bell-Boeing and others have asserted that this aircraft and all of its systems are safe, but the facts continue to tell a different story,” said Tim Loranger, the attorney representing the families, in a press release.
Amber Sax, wife of Captain John Sax, who died in the California accident, told NBC News in a statement that she filed the lawsuit to potentially save others who could be put in danger by the Osprey.
“Our service members deserve equipment and aircraft that are free from failures, especially failures that could cause the loss of their lives,” she said. “I should be growing old with my husband. Our two children should not grow up without their father.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
