MV-22 Osprey: Bad luck in Hawaii

A Marine Corps Osprey aircraft made a hard landing in Hawaii on Sunday, killing one Marine and sending 21 other people to hospitals

The Osprey program was nearly scrapped after a history of failures and two test crashes that killed 23 Marines in 2000.

The aircraft have since been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan

Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey is an American multi-mission, military, tiltrotor military aircraft with both a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), and short takeoff and landing (STOL) capability

In 2011, it was reported that the average V-22 mishap rate per flight hour over the past 10 years was approximately half of the average accident rate for the USMC fleet

In October 2007, Time Magazine ran an article condemning the V-22 as unsafe, overpriced, and completely inadequate; the Marine Corps responded by arguing that parts of the article's data were dated, obsolete, inaccurate, and reflected expectations too high for any new field of aircraft

While technically capable of autorotation if both engines fail in helicopter mode, performance is poor and a safe landing is difficult

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