Naval Air Systems Command boss Vice Adm. Carl Chebi, whose office oversees Ospreys in use across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, said a review that is probing whether the enterprise has adequate manning, training and equipment, will last another six to nine months.

“As we have findings from the comprehensive review, I will take the necessary actions to ensure continued safe flight operations,” Chebi told the panel of lawmakers.

The command allowed the Osprey to begin returning to the air — with flight restrictions in place — in early March, three months after the fleet was grounded in early December following an Air Force CV-22 crash off the coast of Japan that killed all eight airmen on board.

Ospreys can be flown like an airplane and take off and land like a helicopter, making them useful for aircraft carrier landings as well as for special operators entering austere environments.

The Marine Corps operates hundreds of the aircraft, while the Air Force and Navy own around 50 and 30, respectively. Marine Ospreys are starting to reenter the fray; 10 aircraft from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 268 headed to Hawaii in May in preparation for a training exercise in Australia, while the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit is using them in Sweden as part of Exercise Baltic Operations.

The Navy’s CMV-22 fleet remains sidelined from performing its carrier support mission at sea, service officials said Wednesday. Despite getting the green light to resume regular missions, the services are barred from flying more than 30 minutes from an airfield where they could land in case of an emergency, according to Military.com.

Osprey crews at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, have begun rebuilding their skills in anticipation of returning to normal ops, and other squadrons are getting close to flying again, Air Force Special Operations Command spokesperson Lt. Col. Rebecca Heyse told Air Force Times.

An investigation into the Air Force’s Nov. 29 CV-22 crash is nearing completion, with briefings for families expected in the coming weeks. The military has said that accident was the result of a material failure that hadn’t been seen before on the Osprey.

Ospreys have suffered a string of fatal crashes since the U.S. military introduced them into special operations more than two decades ago, including four mishaps that have killed 20 service members since March 2022. The military grounded the Ospreys in 2022 and again in 2023, after a series of “hard clutch engagements” that occurred when the input quill assembly, which attaches the Osprey’s engine to its proprotor gear box, wore out earlier than expected.

On Wednesday, Chebi and Gary Kurtz, program executive officer for anti-submarine, assault and special mission programs including the Osprey, told lawmakers that a redesigned clutch is expected to begin testing soon.

“We anticipate that we will have a new clutch fielding in the mid-2025 timeframe,” Kurtz said.

Faced by Gold Star families who held photos of loved ones during Wednesday’s hearing, lawmakers questioned the aircraft’s mishap and readiness rates, the latter of which have struggled in recent years due to woes like corrosion issues and a lack of available parts.

For example, the Air Force CV-22 fleet’s mission-capable rate, or the percentage of time that the aircraft can perform at least one of its core missions, hovered around 50% between fiscal years 2020 and 2022, according to data provided to Air Force Times.

Members of the House Oversight Committee also pushed for more transparency, saying the military wasn’t sharing enough about the findings on its recent crashes.

Some on Capitol Hill are running out of patience.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat from Massachusetts, called for the entire fleet to be grounded while the military works works out a fix for the clutch.

“If another Osprey goes down, we’re done,” Lynch said. “This program’s done.”

The Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy will immediately start refreshing troops’ training and changing maintenance procedures as prerequisites for resuming normal operations, leaders from each of the services told reporters Wednesday.

But they acknowledged it will be months before the tiltrotor aircraft are fully back to flying real-world missions.

The Ospreys will receive no equipment modifications before they return to the air.

Marine Corps Col. Brian Taylor, the V-22 joint program manager, told reporters his office and the services “have high confidence that we understand what component failed and how it failed.” It’s still unclear why the part in question did not perform as intended.

Taylor and other service officials declined to say which component’s failure caused an Air Force Special Operations Command Osprey to crash into the sea during a training mission Nov. 29, killing all eight airmen aboard. They also declined to answer whether the aircraft would be restricted from flying under certain conditions or in certain areas due to the risk of a repeat problem.

The accident is still under investigation. The Air Force has shared its findings with the joint program office — which manages V-22 acquisition and maintenance for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — and the other services to better understand the material failure that led to the crash.

Because the wreckage of the Osprey sat under the Pacific Ocean for about a month before being recovered, the drive system is corroded such that engineers may never understand why the unnamed component failed, Taylor said. But investigators created a “fault tree” to map out potential causes, which are addressed in the services’ mitigation plan.

The main change will increase the frequency of an inspection that is already done on the aircraft — like upping the number of oil changes on a car, Taylor said. He said the change gives the component a greater “perimeter of safety” during operations.

Though Taylor repeatedly declined to offer information about the component, he said it is not the input quill assembly that attaches the Osprey’s engine to its proprotor gear box — the component that began wearing out early and caused a series of clutch malfunctions for Marine Corps and Air Force pilots in 2022. A portion of the Air Force and Marine Corps fleets were grounded in 2023 as those services studied how to mitigate the risk of so-called “hard clutch engagements” and when to replace worn-out parts.

NBC reported Feb. 19 the November crash may have involved “chipping,” where tiny pieces of metal wear off during use and can damage the engine. Taylor did not specify whether chipping played a role in the crash, but characterized it as a normal phenomenon for a mechanical system and said the V-22 has a sophisticated monitoring system that looks for small metal bits and alerts the pilot if any are detected.

Taylor made clear the November crash was unrelated to other previous V-22 mishaps.

“This is the first time that we’ve seen this particular component fail in this way, and so this is unprecedented” in the 750,000 flight hours amassed over the life of the V-22 program, he said.

Due to that long track record, Taylor said: “We are confident in the system.”

The ‘Gundam 22′ crash

The Nov. 29 accident was the deadliest Air Force mishap since 2018, and the fourth fatal Osprey crash in a two-year span. Twenty U.S. troops have died in Osprey incidents since March 2022.

The downed crew of “Gundam 22″ included Osprey pilots Maj. Jeff Hoernemann, Maj. Luke Unrath and Capt. Terry Brayman; medical personnel Maj. Eric Spendlove and Tech. Sgt. Zach Lavoy; flight engineers Staff Sgt. Jake Turnage and Senior Airman Kody Johnson; and airborne linguist Staff Sgt. Jake Galliher.

Six were stationed at Japan’s Yokota Air Base; two worked at Kadena Air Base. All were assigned to the Air Force’s 353rd Special Operations Wing.

The weeks-long, multinational search effort successfully recovered the bodies of all but Spendlove.

The U.S. military now flies hundreds of V-22s, largely operated by the Marines. The tiltrotor aircraft is known for its towering nacelles that allow it to launch and land like a helicopter, and speed forward like a fixed-wing plane. Troops use the unique aircraft to slip in and out of areas without established runways, where fixed-wing planes may not be able to land with troops and supplies.

The Marine Corps owns nearly 350 Ospreys; the Air Force and Navy operate smaller fleets at around 50 and 30 aircraft, respectively.

Beyond the safety and accident investigation boards studying the most recent crash, Air Force Special Operations Command is also conducting a deep-dive into its CV-22 Osprey program to determine whether it provides adequate training, resources and other factors to ensure airmen’s safety.

The Government Accountability Office and House Committee on Oversight and Accountability have also launched their own probes into the V-22. On Wednesday, Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who chairs the House oversight committee, said it had not yet received information from the military as it looks into the aircraft’s safety and performance.

“Serious concerns remain, such as accountability measures put in place to prevent crashes, a general lack of transparency, how maintenance and operational upkeep is prioritized, and how DOD assesses risks,” Comer said in a statement. “We will continue to rigorously investigate the DOD’s Osprey program to attain answers to our questions on behalf of American taxpayers and protect U.S. service members defending our nation.”

Marines prepare

As the biggest user of the V-22 platform by far, the Marine Corps has been most affected by the monthslong grounding. It relies on the Osprey to move people, supplies and weapons, and operates from ship decks and from ground bases.

Brig. Gen. Richard Joyce, the assistant deputy commandant for aviation, told reporters the Marine Corps has focused on keeping up troops’ proficiency on the Osprey since the grounding began in early December so the service could resume flights as quickly as possible.

“Our simulator utilization has been maximized to keep proficiency as much as possible in the virtual environment,” he said.

The service has gone as far as sending MV-22 pilots in Djibouti thousands of miles away to use simulators in Japan, and shipping MV-22 pilots who are deployed to the Middle East with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit back home to North Carolina for simulator training.

Now that the program office has cleared the aircraft to fly, the Corps’ most experienced pilots and aircrew will begin maintenance-check flights to get the Ospreys up in the air, then retrain on “core and basic skills,” Joyce said. Once those top personnel have brushed up on the fundamentals, they’ll pair with junior pilots and crew for additional basic training.

Joyce said it would take about a month for a squadron to get everyone back up to speed basic skills.

However, it will take more time for the personnel to retrain on more advanced skills and mission-specific tasks for combat assaults, transport flights and other missions.

The general said it would take until late spring or early summer to get back to pre-grounding readiness levels.

V-22 squadrons will go through more consumable parts, like filters, as they take on additional inspections and maintenance, he said. Those parts and training support will first go to deployed units, followed by squadrons with upcoming deployments, squadrons participating in key exercises or service-level training events, and eventually to test-and-evaluation units and those farthest from a future deployment.

The amphibious assault ship Boxer and the 15th MEU are set to deploy from California this spring, and Joyce said it’s not clear yet if they’ll be ready to bring the V-22 along. It’s one of the most pressing decisions related to resuming V-22 flight operations, he said.

Air Force’s ongoing studies

Airmen have done the work required to keep the Air Force’s Osprey fleet healthy during the three-month standdown, but “there’s only so much they can do with aircraft that are not flying,” Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind told reporters Wednesday.

He described a 12-week road map to getting the Ospreys back in the air that adds new maintenance requirements and allows experienced airmen to lead the way. The service will deviate from that plan as needed if work isn’t progressing on schedule.

Returning the aircraft to service begins with ground and simulator training that will include new safety controls and briefings, a review of aircraft maintenance records and refining squadron-level training plans to implement the new safety protocols, Bauernfeind said.

The Air Force did not elaborate on what new safety protocols will be introduced. AFSOC held an all-hands for Osprey crews Feb. 22-23 at Hurlburt Field, Florida, to explain the new safety protocols.

“We received very positive feedback that it was very beneficial to the crews,” Bauernfeind said.

The second phase will focus on returning air crews and maintainers to basic proficiency, initially targeted at senior aviators, instructors, evaluators and weapons officers. Simulator training has helped keep skills sharp during the standdown.

The phased approach gives the service time to absorb findings from the service’s initial safety investigation, an internal report meant to root out the cause of a mishap and prevent future occurrences. Bauernfeind received and accepted the findings of the safety board March 1.

He expects it will take the service more than three months to reach the level of proficiency it had on the Osprey before the Nov. 29 crash.

Bauernfeind said he’s confident in the service’s ability to safely resume Osprey operations before wrapping up two ongoing investigations. The Air Force has kept the families of the downed crew informed about the process, but has not told them the results of the recently completed safety investigation board.

“I have confidence that we know enough now to return to fly,” he said.

Navy’s path to at-sea missions

The Navy will take a similarly cautious approach to resuming its flights, putting only its most experienced personnel in the air first for basic flights in daytime-only conditions, Commander of Naval Air Forces Vice Adm. Daniel Cheever told reporters.

Those top personnel will then pair with junior sailors and eventually resume night operations and other, more complex training. The Navy will lastly resume training new pilots and aircrew at the fleet replacement squadrons.

But Cheever warned that returning to flight wasn’t the same as returning to mission: It may be several more months until the Navy sees its CMV-22Bs flying operational missions to haul cargo and people to aircraft carriers at sea.

Cheever said the Navy would avoid long, over-ocean flights until all personnel had built up sufficient proficiency. But when asked about any restrictions on the aircraft regarding duration of over-water flights, he deferred to NAVAIR. Taylor, from the V-22 program office under NAVAIR, declined to say whether there were or were not any operational limitations for the planes under the new return-to-flight plan.

Cheever highlighted the Navy’s flexibility and said all carriers at sea had fared well during the V-22 grounding. The Navy relied on its C-2A Greyhound, which is set to sundown in 2026 as it’s replaced by the CMV-22B, to resupply carriers at sea, including the Theodore Roosevelt deployed in the Indo-Pacific today.

He said the Navy also relied more heavily on its replenishment ship fleet and looked to load more goods onto carriers when they were in port.

But he noted the importance of getting the CMV-22 back to its mission, saying it can conduct medical evacuations and haul large F-35C engine components — unlike its aging predecessor.

In the six weeks since the tiltrotor Osprey went down in the sea off southern Japan during a Nov. 29 training mission, killing all onboard, a multinational search party comprised of more than 1,000 personnel, 46 aircraft, 23 maritime vessels and 21 unmanned aerial and underwater drones scoured more than 60,000 square kilometers of the ocean’s surface and 29 square kilometers of ocean floor, the Air Force said.

The around-the-clock hunt successfully recovered the bodies of seven members of the Japan-based Osprey’s crew and most of the aircraft’s fuselage. But despite their extensive resources, the search team proved unable to secure the remains of Maj. Eric “Doc” Spendlove, a flight surgeon and medical operations flight commander at Kadena Air Base’s 1st Special Operations Squadron.

“While it is with tremendous deep regret that we were unable to find our last teammate, Maj. Eric Spendlove, the combined joint efforts of our Japanese allies and U.S. military forces has been inspiring to see the lengths our forces will go in order to attempt to bring a teammate home,” said Rear Adm. Jeromy Williams, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific.

“After over a month of exhausting air, surface, sub-surface and modeling and simulation assets, we have ruled out all identified possible options to recover our teammate,” he added. “Our thoughts remain with the families and squadron mates of our CV-22 aircrew and we extend our sincerest gratitude to every asset who assisted in the search.”

The Air Force is investigating what caused the wreck and has said that a system malfunction is likely to blame. The accident marks the deadliest Air Force mishap since 2018.

The crash is the latest in a deadly string of Osprey incidents that have killed twenty U.S. troops since March 2022, prompting the military to indefinitely ground its entire fleet of hundreds of V-22 aircraft across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. It has also spurred investigations by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Government Accountability Office.

“The efforts of the joint force and our Japanese allies since Nov. 29 have been exceptional,” Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind said. “As we move forward, we remain focused on supporting the families and air commandos impacted by the loss of ‘GUNDAM 22,’ as well as completing the ongoing investigations to prevent future mishaps.”

The Government Accountability Office’s managing director for congressional relations, A. Nicole Clowers, confirmed the probe in a Dec. 19 letter in response to a request from House Armed Services Committee members Reps. Mike Waltz and John Garamendi. Air Force Times obtained the letter Wednesday.

“GAO accepts your request as work that is within the scope of its authority,” Clowers wrote to Waltz, a Florida Republican who chairs HASC’s readiness subcommittee, and Garamendi, a California Democrat who serves as the panel’s ranking member. The pair urged the watchdog to look into the Osprey’s safety history Dec. 7.

Waltz and Garamendi asked the office to consider trends among the tiltrotor aircraft’s multiple accidents over the past three decades; maintenance and supply issues that may hurt the Osprey’s mission readiness; and risk management across the fleet, which spans the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

“We believe an assessment of the above issues, and any recommendations GAO may have, will assist us as we conduct oversight on DOD to ensure our military is achieving the required level of readiness while keeping our service members safe,” the lawmakers wrote.

Chuck Young, a GAO spokesperson, told Air Force Times Wednesday that the agency expects the probe to begin soon but did not say how long the work may take.

The Nov. 29 crash of a Japan-based Air Force CV-22, which went down during a training mission off of Japan’s Yakushima island, is the latest in a deadly string of Osprey incidents that have killed twenty U.S. troops since March 2022.

The Air Force has said that an aircraft malfunction, not a mistake by the crew, likely caused the crash. The accident marks the deadliest Air Force mishap since 2018.

The incident prompted the U.S. military to indefinitely ground its entire fleet of hundreds of V-22 Ospreys while the Air Force searches for answers about the latest fatal incident. It has also prompted the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability to launch its own investigation into the Osprey program.

A multinational search effort has recovered the remains of seven airmen from the crash so far; a search for the eighth airman, Maj. Eric Spendlove, is still ongoing, Air Force Special Operations Command spokesperson Lt. Col. Rebecca Heyse said Wednesday.

The Air Force announced Jan. 3 that it had recovered the intact flight data recorder, or “black box,” from the downed Osprey. The service has not yet released any details of its contents.

Most service members are young, and by virtue of the fact that they’re considered fit to serve, by definition not immunocompromised.

“What we’re trying very hard to do is not scare people by saying everybody is at risk, because that’s not true,” Friedrichs said. “It’s just not true.”

Since coronavirus began spreading late last year, one service member and his spouse have been diagnosed. The widow of a retired soldier and two other DoD dependents ― all living in Daegu, South Korea ― have also been diagnosed, out of more than 80,000 cases worldwide.

“Those are small numbers,” Friedrichs said. “And I don’t want to seem like I’m being a Pollyanna here and saying everything is rosy, but really, the numbers within the DoD that we are treating are very small, and they’re all getting the care that they need based on the CDC guidelines.”

While health professionals and government agencies are still learning more about the virus, how it spreads and how deadly it is, Friedrichs said, there are some hard-and-fast criteria for people whose immune systems aren’t 100 percent.

“If they’re someone who routinely gets sick before anybody else, then we definitely want to make sure that we’re aware of that,” he said.

Someone undergoing chemotherapy for cancer treatment would also be at a much higher risk.

“If they’re already sick,” Friedrichs added. “If they’ve recently had an illness and they’re recovering from that, then they may get another illness, because their immune system is focusing on their immediate illness that they’re recovering from right now.”

As far as specific conditions, whether it’s asthma or chronic pulmonary disease, he added, that research is evolving.

“We’re still learning which groups are at most risk,” he said. “What we’re just not seeing is people under the age of 20 really getting sick with this, regardless of what else they have.”

It’s also likely that there are asymptomatic carriers unwittingly spreading the virus, he said, because not everyone who has tested positive worldwide has shown symptoms.

Officials could not confirm the number of of coronavirus tests so far administered to troops, their families or DoD civilians, nor did they have numbers readily available on false positives.

It is protocol, Friedrichs said, to run a second test on any positives and send those kits to the CDC in Atlanta for confirmation.

Limiting the spread

While coronavirus has been very localized in the military community, the services are taking precautions to screen every new recruit before they set foot on an installation.

The Army began using a series of questions and taking the temperatures of its newest basic trainees on Tuesday, with instructions to isolate anyone who is showing symptoms, has had contact with a high-risk population or is running a fever over 99.5.

The Navy began a similar process in January, according to a spokesman.

“Any recruit identified as having symptoms or having traveled overseas to certain regions in the last 14 days would be addressed by medical personnel for follow-on assessment and treatment,” Lt. Samuel Boyle told Military Times on Wednesday.

The Marine Corps is also screening at its recruit depots, according spokesman Capt, Christopher Harrison.

While the Air Force is not specifically screening at its basic training units, it is leaning on its recruiters and staff at Military Entrance Processing Stations to catch any symptoms or particular risks.

“Members at MEPS have virus protocol procedures to observe and take temperatures of all individuals entering MEPS facilities,” according to Jennifer Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Air Education and Training Command Spokesperson. recruiters also complete a medical pre-screen on all applicants that covers all medical concerns, to include COVID-19.”

The new Naval Education for Seapower Strategy was released Monday and Chief Learning Officer John Kroger told Navy Times that the service is considering three groups of enlisted students, totaling between 300 – 600 personnel, for courses that are expected to begin January 2021.

“We’ll have a mixed cohort of students from the Marine Corps cyber and information warfare communities, a group of students from the Navy’s nuclear program — so these are enlisted sailors who operate the nuclear reactors — and a cohort likely to come from the intelligence communities in the Navy and Marine Corps,” Kroger said.

Establishing a free community college to offer accredited associate degrees for all enlisted students is part of a push to streamline how the sea service educates all its personnel, including commissioned officers and civilian employees.

“At the end of the Cold War, the United States possessed a massive economic and technological edge over all potential opponents,” the strategy says. “Today, for the first time in decades, we are competing on a much more level playing field and our advantage is declining.”

To help remedy that, the new plan calls for pegging officer promotions to educational attainment, with an eye on potentially bringing similar requirements to enlisted sailors and Marines hoping to advance.

“The strategy currently doesn’t call for any changes in the evaluation or promotion system for the enlisted force. Those changes are really focused on officers,” Kroger said. “Part of that is we recognize it’s not going to be a one size fits all solution on the enlisted side.”

As an example, Kroger said an infantry Marine might not need an associate degree to advance but a sailor in cyber warfare or information technology might need to show continued learning to get ahead.

The overhaul also looks to bridge gaps in war fighting curriculum for junior and mid-grade officers and boost the numbers of commissioned personnel in professional military education programs.

According to the report, 2.9 percent of naval officers in Fiscal Year 2019 attended in-residence programs while 6.7 percent sought out online or executive learning opportunities.

By Fiscal Year 2026, the service wants to increase those to 3.9 percent and 10 percent respectively.

Former Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer declared plans for the community college early last year while unveiling several directives under the Education for Seapower report.

The study, completed by a team formed by Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, was the most comprehensive review of naval education in a century. At the time of the study, Modly was then serving as undersecretary.

Developing the service’s brainpower — what Modly calls “gray matter” — has been a frequent subject for the acting secretary. In his latest “vector,” a weekly message to the fleet, he again addressed the importance of learning, which he called “the most essential tool in the organization’s arsenal for sustained competitive advantage.”

“We must similarly understand that in order to deter and, if necessary, outfight our adversaries, we must learn how to out-think them,” Modly wrote.

The new education strategy calls for pulling the community college, the U.S. Naval Academy, Marine Corps University, the U.S. Naval War College and the Naval Postgraduate School under one system. That will help planners identify redundancies and share ideas through faculty exchanges and visiting professorships.

In addition to a curriculum reviews, the strategy also directs Navy education leaders until June to come up with a plan to address aging infrastructure at the Naval Academy, Postgraduate School and War College.

Although the community college will have an administrative base in Quantico, at Marine Corps University, it will focus on delivering classes online to meet the needs of enlisted sailors, according to Kroger.

The service recently completed interviews with candidates hoping the become the college’s first president.

“We had a great applicant pool and so I’m really excited about the candidates we had to choose from,” Kroger told Navy Times. “We’ll be working with the Secretary of the Navy over the next few weeks to make those final decisions and the job offer.”

U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced the Saudi students’ removal Monday during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington. Barr said there was no indication the gunman, Saudi Air Force 2nd Lt. Mohammed Alshamrani, who was killed by a sheriff’s deputy, acted in concert with other Saudi cadets or foreign nationals in the program.

“This was an act of terrorism,” he said.

Of the 21 being removed, investigators found 17 had posted anti-American or “jihadi” content on social media and 15 had had contact with child pornography, mostly via a chat room in which one or two images had been posted.

Barr said none of the content rose to the level of federal prosecution and added that the Saudi government found the material unbecoming for its officers and would assist in the event of additional investigatory needs. Of those being removed, 12 came from Pensacola while the other nine were located at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi, Laughlin and Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph Air Force bases in Texas and Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma.

There are about 150 Saudi cadets in the training pipeline at Pensacola.

After being notified of the concerning content, “the Department of Defense worked with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to withdraw the students from training and in consultation with the Department of Justice, the DOD worked with the Saudi Embassy in the United States to return these students to Saudi Arabia,” Pentagon press secretary Alyssa Farah said in a statement released Monday evening.

In the year and a half before the shooting, Alshamrani left a social media trail that indicated he’d been influenced by “jihadist ideology” and believed violence was necessary to defend Muslim countries. He also posted a message containing anti-American and anti-Israeli comments two hours before the attack as well as another that raised concern.

“We learned that the shooter posted a message on Sept. 11 of this year stating that the countdown has begun,” Barr said.

A senior Justice Department official said an investigation in the Southern District of New York that was opened after officials learned Alshamrani visited the 9/11 Memorial there with friends during the Thanksgiving break did not reveal anything.

Barr and FBI Deputy Director David Bowditch described a chilling scene in which Alshamrani arrived at a schoolhouse and cased the building, walking around and shooting others in what Barr said was “in cold blood.” Alshamrani’s rampage lasted 15 minutes, eight of which he was engaged by Navy security. Investigators found Alshamrani’s handgun, which they previously have said he purchased legally in July using a hunting loophole, as well as 180 rounds of ammunition. He also shot photos of President Donald Trump and a past commander in chief, Bowditch said.

But investigators said they may still be missing key pieces of evidence. The department has tried to gain access to two iPhones that Alshamrani carried, including one that he shot during the rampage and another that was found damaged in his car. FBI crime lab experts have gotten the phones working but “both are engineered to make it virtually impossible to unlock without the password,” Barr said.

Despite pleas to Apple, the company has so far not assisted in helping unlock the phones. A senior justice department official speaking on background said it is not clear that the company has the ability to do so.

“It is very important for us to know with whom and about what the shooter was communicating before he died,” Barr said, hinting at the larger issue of the law enforcement and privacy rights divide.

Barr also said that early reports that two other Saudi cadets arrived with Alshamrani and took video of the attack were incorrect. Those cadets “took some video of the resulting commotion around the building” and later cooperated fully with authorities, Barr said.

About a dozen Saudi students who knew Alshamrani were restricted to the Pensacola base by their commanding officer while the Pentagon reviewed policies and procedures guiding officials who screen international military students before being allowed into the U.S. to train.

That included a moratorium on all operational instruction for Saudi students in the country now, plus a bar on new students entering the training programs, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan R. Hoffman told reporters during a briefing in December.

Barr declined to speculate as to whether improved vetting would have deterred the attack. Pentagon spokesman Air Force Lt. Col Uriah Orland told Navy Times in an email late Monday afternoon that Defense Secretary Mark Esper “has the results of the vetting review and we will release appropriate information in the near future.”

The Navy posthumously advanced two enlisted sailors — Airman Mohammed S. Haitham and Airman Apprentice Cameron S. Walters — to naval aircrewman mechanical third class. Ensign Joshua K. Watson was advanced to aviator. Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly had previously awarded Haitham and Walters Wings of Gold, posthumously designating them naval aircrewmen.

Navy Times received a copy of the application after filing a public records request. On it, Alshamrani listed “230 Chevalier Field Road” as both his physical and mailing address.

But there doesn’t appear to be a “230 Chevalier Field Road” inside Naval Air Station Pensacola.

There’s a similar address — 230 Chevalier Field Avenue — which matches the location of Naval Air Technical Training Center there, but the permit application failed to specify a barracks, the headquarters, a classroom or any other building on the sprawling air station where Alshamrani resided.

FBI has not said if Alshamrani lived on base or off, nor have they named the building in which he massacred three sailors in a classroom before being gunned down in a shoot out with local sheriff’s officers early Dec. 6.

Eight others, including two sheriff’s deputies, were wounded in the rampage.

FBI and Florida officials told Navy Times that Alshamrani legally purchased the murder weapon — a Glock Model 45 9mm pistol — from a Florida gun dealer on July 20, nine days after the state granted his hunting permit.

Federal law normally would’ve barred him from buying the gun, but he relied on an exemption for those with state-issued hunting permits.

Florida lets hunters use pistols to hunt otters, rabbits, wild hogs, raccoons, opossums, skunks, nutrias, beavers, coyotes and other creatures, depending on the season.

In 2017, federal and state agents cracked down on Chinese students at University of Arizona who used the hunting license loophole to obtain firearms in Tucson.

Navy officials and FBI Jacksonville spokeswoman Amanda Warford Videll declined to comment on Alshamrani’s hunting application, citing the ongoing investigation.

FBI have told Navy Times agents are treating the case as a counter-terrorism investigation and they’re studying social media messages that might indicate radicalization before the gunman opened fire on the classroom.

Alshamrani’s hunting permit raises a number of questions about how well the state keeps potentially dangerous foreign visitors from obtaining firearms.

It’s unclear if the address listed on Alshamrani’s application should have triggered a deeper investigation into why a Saudi lieutenant in flight training sought a hunting permit.

It’s also not known whether Alshamrani meant to deceive Florida officials by using an address similar to the training command headquarter’s location on the application, but a privacy notice at the bottom of the document references Florida’s broad public records law, warning applicants that some private information might be made available to others.

While Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is responsible for administering the licenses, it also has statutory authority to allow licensed sub-agents to handle them, Katie Purcell, a spokeswoman told Navy Times in an email.

Its website lists 13 of those agents in Pensacola, including multiple Walmarts and outdoor retailers, plus three county tax collectors offices.

“Formal government documents and identification are required to be displayed to obtain hunting licenses or permits,” Purcell said in an email. “These documents are validated by the entity selling the license.”

“When a licensed sub-agent provides a hunting or fishing license, FWC receives the information into the FWC licensing system,” she wrote.

Purcell did not respond to questions about how the commission verifies addresses listed on the applications.

Although Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has decried the “federal loophole” that allowed Alshamrani to buy a gun, his office has not responded to questions from Navy Times about the killer’s state hunting application.

Navy officials also declined to provide specifics about the building at 230 Chevalier Field Ave, providing only general details about the command, which trains about 15,000 sailors and Marines annually.

The bulk of them are enlisted personnel attending “A” schools, although the command offers more advanced training for senior petty officers and officers.

Following last week’s shooting, the Pentagon has ordered a review of the policies and procedures that guide officials who screen international military students before being allowed into the U.S. to train.

The mandate includes a moratorium on all operational instruction for Saudi students in the country now, plus a bar on new students entering the training programs, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan R. Hoffman told reporters during a briefing last week.

Pentagon and FBI officials told Navy Times that a dozen Saudi students who knew Alshamrani also are restricted to Naval Air Station Pensacola by their commanding officer.

They’re also under orders from Riyadh to aid federal investigators in their ongoing probe.

Senior Staff Reporter Geoff Ziezulewicz and Military Times Senior Reporter Shawn Snow contributed to this report.

Though she’s just recently landed at a command outside Washington and has several years before her tour there ends, she’s already mapping out her career. And she’s eyeing Germany as a possible duty station.

The release of a new website, MyNavy Assignment, earlier this month, could make planning that next step easier for her.

MyNavy Assignment launched Dec. 5 for active duty and full time support reservists after being announced by an administrative message.

It replaced the previous Career Management System — Interactive Detailing site, which the Navy had used since 2006, according to Chief of Naval Personnel spokesman Cmdr. Dave Hecht.

MyNavy Assignment incorporates expanded search functions, and allows sailors access to explore jobs any time, not just during the two-week job application window previously allowed under the old model.

With it, sailors can now bookmark up to 100 jobs and submit up to seven job applications — two more than previously allowed — during their detailing window.

There also are sections for comments so sailors, detailers and the command can provide feedback on applications, plus a MyResume tool for applicants to highlight their skills and accomplishments.

The goal is greater transparency, said Navy Personnel Command Force Master Chief Scott Rossiter.

“Sailors can see all jobs that are available,” Rossiter said. “It allows them full transparency of what jobs are out there. Those jobs may be open, they may be closed, but they can at least view all of those jobs for greater transparency.”

Five preference categories — community, location, command, platform type and type duty — that sailors will rank will also help detailers know what’s most important, said Rossiter.

“We can better help overlap what the sailor wants and what the Navy needs,” Rossiter said. “We’re hoping to make a bigger overlap of those two things and then hopefully steer people to where they’re most qualified. It benefits both us and the sailor by keeping them happy and keeping our jobs filled, and better readiness.”

The bookmarks and preferences allow the Navy to track interest in billets and and gather data on hard-to-fill jobs. With the new interface, commands also can learn more details about the sailors applying for the slots.

As many as 18,000 sailors will put the new system to test when their detailing window opens at the end of the month, Hecht said.

On the day it launched, 16,195 sailors logged on to MyNavy Assignment, Hecht added. There were 57,343 unique visits between Dec. 5 through Dec. 10 and sailors bookmarked 16,949 billets.

Information Systems Technician 1st Class Pawel Kuczmanski, who works for the Chief of Naval Personnel, said he likes the transparency and expanded options of the new system, including the ability to export jobs into Excel.

“It’s your career,” Kucmanski said. “Bottom line. If you don’t take care of it, nobody else will.”

Just a few days after the launch of the new site, Tucker had bookmarked several jobs she wants to keep tabs on, including a PS1 billet on the Norfolk-based guided missile destroyer Gravely and another with a Naval Special Warfare detachment in Stuttgart, Germany.

For that billet, Tucker could see that she lacked a couple of requirements, including a top secret security clearance and some enlisted classifications, but she has years to prepare to get them.

“I bookmarked it because I want to go to Germany,” Tucker said.

The Navy has not identified the shooter but NAS Pensacola base commander Capt. Timothy Kinsella said during an afternoon news conference that he was a student in the Navy aviation pipeline.

“He was training in aviation,” Kinsella said.

Pentagon officials later confirmed to the Washington Post and other outlets that the slain gunman was a junior Saudi officer, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani.

He was among a couple hundred international students that train at the base, which is the primary initial training stop for all Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard officers seeking to become aviators or flight officers, plus international students.

During a Friday night press conference, FBI Jacksonville Field Office Special Agent In Charge Rachel Rojas declined to confirm the suspect’s name or a motive. She described the carnage as a “large crime scene.”

“This is still very much an active and ongoing investigation,” Rojas said.

FBI is leading the probe assisted by base security and agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan confirmed during a separate press conference earlier Friday that the wounded include two officers, one shot in the knee and the other in the arm.

The law enforcement officer shot in the arm killed the shooter, Morgan said. The other was in surgery Friday and both were expected to recover.

Morgan said the incident was confined to the building and the classroom.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered flags across the state of Florida to be flown at half-staff and remain so until sunset Dec. 13 in honor and remembrance of the victims.

Saying he had spoken to President Donald J. Trump earlier, DeSantis announced during the afternoon news conference that the “government of Saudi Arabia is going to owe a debt here to the victims.”

Trump vowed that U.S. military investigators would “get to the bottom of” the mass shooting.

At a business event in the White House Friday afternoon, Trump said he received a call from Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz earlier in the day condemning the action.

“The king and the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter, and he said that this person in no way shape or form represents the feelings of the Saudi people, who love the American people,” Trump said.

“It’s a horrible thing that took place.”

After offering his condolences to the injured, Trump promised that the White House will work closely with defense officials on a response to the attack.

Saudi officials did not answer questions about the shooting submitted to the embassy by Navy Times in writing Friday morning.

But Khalid bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Riyadh’s deputy defense minister who trained as a fighter pilot at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi, said in a Friday tweet that the “tragic event is strongly condemned by everyone in Saudi Arabia.”

“A large number of Saudi graduates of the Naval Air Station in Pensacola moved on to serve with their U.S counterparts in battlefronts around the world, helping to safeguard the regional and global security,” he added.

It remains unclear how a Saudi student was able to obtain a firearm and Kinsella said that even sailors assigned to the air station “cannot bring your weapon on base.”

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper issued a statement offering condolences to families of the victim’s in Friday’s attack as well as a shooting spree that left three people dead on Wednesday at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. The Navy identified the shooter in that incident as well as two civilian victims on Friday.

His third victim is recovering in a Honolulu hospital.

“The Department of Defense continues to monitor the situation in Pensacola and gather all the facts of each attack,” Esper said. “I’ve spoken with Governor DeSantis, the Secretary of the Navy, and Deputy Secretary Norquist and am considering several steps to ensure the security of our military installations and the safety of our service members and their families. I’m grateful for the heroism of the first responders and law enforcement who helped confront both situations and kept further loss of life from occurring.

“To all our sailors, soldiers, airmen, and marines, and civilian personnel, we stand ready to assist and make resources available to deal with the grief in the aftermath of these tragedies as well as life’s challenges in general.”

The names of the victims will not be released until the next of kin have been notified, officials added.

The Coast Guard 8th District’s spokesman John D. Edwards told Navy Times that all Coast Guard personnel are accounted for and they reported no injuries.

Marine officials told Marine Corps Times that all of their students and instructors also reported no injuries in the wake of the shooting.

Hours after the Pensacola mass shooting, Patrick Air Force Base in Florida received a bomb threat and evacuated the immediate area.

An all-clear was soon sounded after security forces, explosive ordnance disposal specialists and the fire department found there was no credible threat.

Meanwhile, the man authorities say drove a truck through the gate at Virginia’s Joint Expeditionary Base Fort Story before striking a Navy police cruiser and killing a sailor inside on Saturday also was arraigned Friday.

Nathaniel Lee Campbell, 38, of Shenandoah, Virginia, is in the custody of the Virginia Beach Sheriff’s Office, the Virginia Beach Police Department said in a news release.

Master-at-Arms 3rd Class Oscar J. Temores was responding to a report of a gate runner around 7:35 p.m. Saturday when his police cruiser was struck head on by a 2004 Chevrolet Silverado pickup driven by Campbell at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Leyte Street, the Navy and police said.

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly said in a prepared statement emailed to Navy Times that the entire Navy and Marine Corps are “struck and deeply saddened by the attacks within our own naval family over the past several days, at Little Creek, Virginia last week, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Wednesday, and today in Pensacola, Florida.

“These acts are crimes against all of us. Our prayers are with the families of the fallen and with the wounded. It is our solemn duty to find the causes of such tragic loss and ceaselessly work together to prevent them. Let us make concerted efforts to care for the families of those lost, and those wounded, visibly and not. Let us shepherd them through these first moments of despair, and make them, and our greater Naval family, whole and strong. “

It’s been what Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday called late Friday “a devastating week for our Navy family.”

“When tragedy hits, as it did today, and Wednesday in Pearl Harbor, it is felt by all,” said Gilday in a prepared statement emailed to Navy Times. “Those who grieve do not do so alone. We grieve together alongside you. We serve together as one team, as one Fleet, as part of one Joint Force.

“As shipmates — uniform and civilian, active and reserve — we must come together to be the strength and support for those who need us now. No one should feel alone. There are many resources available for us all — including counselors, chaplains and mental health professionals.

“We must look out for each other and take care of one another. That extra effort to extend a hand or lend an ear to those who need help should never be underestimated. It will make a difference.”

Later on Friday evening, Naval Air Base Pensacola officials shuttered the installation for the weekend to all hands except mission essential personnel.

While families who live on base will be able to enter the gates, the National Naval Aviation Museum and Barrancas National Cemetery are closed until further notice.

“Today was a sad day for Naval Air Station Pensacola and the local community with the events that unfolded on board the installation,” said commanding officer Kinsella. “We appreciate the support that we have received from across the country to include local, state and federal agencies. The quick actions by our naval security forces and local law enforcement prevented the situation from potentially being worse than it was.

“NAS Pensacola stands strong with our Navy family and our Pensacola community. Our hearts and prayers go out to all of the victims and their families.”

Navy leaders have opened an Emergency Family Assistance Center at the Navy Gateway Inns and Suites (Building 3249) until 9 p.m. Friday evening.

It will move to the Fleet and Family Service Center at 8 a.m. Saturday to provide counseling to witnesses, friends, relatives and base residents.

For more information, call 850-452-5000.

If you, a friend or a loved one is in crisis, please connect with a trained counselor now. Confidential, immediate help is available 24/7 at no cost to active duty, Guard and reserve members, their families and friends. Contact the Military Crisis Line at 800-273-8255, then press 1, or access online chat by texting 838255. Your life matters.

This is a breaking story. We will continue to update it only with official, corroborated sources.

Military Times Managing Editor Howard Altman, Marine Corps Times Editor Andrea Scott, Military Times Deputy Editor Leo Shane III and Air Force Times Senior Reporter Stephen Losey contributed to this article.