Under the new policy, a person can collect a daily stipend based on their monthly housing allowance rate without dependents, the Department of the Air Force said May 15. For instance, a major who lives near Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, while attending Air Command and Staff College can earn about $1,600 a month.

The new allowance is paid on top of the housing stipend an airman or guardian already receives at their primary residence.

Troops qualify for the pay bump if they are stationed at the training location for less than a year, have orders to return to their previous base, and do not live in free government housing like dormitories.

The change offers more flexibility for troops whose permanent changes of station can financially crunch families who stay behind while a service member is away at school. Those monthslong relocations are critical steps on an airman or guardian’s effort to climb the career ladder, but can squeeze a family’s budget when trying to pay for two homes at once.

“We understand that these short moves, while necessary, can be disruptive to the lives and finances of airmen and guardians with families — particularly in situations where they are slated to return to their original duty station,” Alex Wagner, the service’s civilian personnel boss, said in a release. “This new allowance gives our service members and their families additional resources to weather these times away without the added stress of financial uncertainties.”

Congress directed the military to adopt the new policy as part of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which became law in December 2022. Pay is retroactive to Dec. 23, 2022.

The Pentagon added the rule to its Joint Travel Regulation last fall. The Air Force and Space Force’s rule took effect May 7; the Navy and Marine Corps enacted their own versions in March. The Army has not yet issued a parallel update.

“The November 2023 Joint Travel Regulation update entitled eligible Army service members to these allowances even without Army policy implementation,” Army spokesperson Heather Hagan said Wednesday. “We are in the process of updating our policies.”

Help Military Times understand what it’s like to be part of the Osprey community: If you have served on an Osprey aircrew, as a maintainer or in another role in the Osprey enterprise, whether in the Air Force, Navy or Marine Corps, please email Air Force Times Editor Rachel Cohen at rcohen@militarytimes.com to share your perspective.

Anonymity can be granted upon request if we use any of your insights in future stories.

Thanks for your help, and for your service.

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.

An active duty member of the U.S. Air Force died Sunday after he set himself ablaze outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., while declaring that he “will no longer be complicit in genocide.”

Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell, 25, of Whitman, Massachusetts, died from his injuries, the Air Force confirmed Monday evening.

Bushnell had walked up to the embassy shortly before 1 p.m. on Sunday and began livestreaming on the video streaming platform Twitch, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Law enforcement officials believe the man started a livestream, set his phone down and then doused himself in accelerant and ignited the flames.

At one point, he said he “will no longer be complicit in genocide,” the person said. The video was later removed from the platform, but law enforcement officials have obtained and reviewed a copy.

The person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Bushnell worked as a cyber defense operations specialist with the 531st Intelligence Support Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio, the Air Force said in a release Monday. He had served on active duty since May 2020.

“When a tragedy like this occurs, every member of the Air Force feels it,” said Col. Celina Noyes, commander of the 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing at Fort Meade, Maryland, which oversees Bushnell’s squadron. “We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Senior Airman Bushnell. Our thoughts and prayers are with them, and we ask that you respect their privacy during this difficult time.”

The incident happened as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking the cabinet approval for a military operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah while a temporary cease-fire deal is being negotiated.

Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, however, has drawn criticisms, including genocide claims against the Palestinians.

Israel has adamantly denied the genocide allegations and says it is carrying out operations in accordance with international law in the Israel-Hamas war.

In December, a person self-immolated outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta and used gasoline as an accelerant, according to Atlanta’s fire authorities. A Palestinian flag was found at the scene, and the act was believed to be one of “extreme political protest.”

It also has affected some retail pharmacies across the country.

For the time being, officials ask for patience, “while pharmacies take longer than usual to safely fill prescription needs.”

Until the issue is resolved, military pharmacies will use a manual procedure to fill outpatient prescriptions, health officials said in a Thursday statement to Military Times. Priority goes to urgent prescriptions, followed by routine prescriptions.

“Each military hospital and clinic will continue to offer pharmacy operations based on their local manning and resources,” officials said.

On Wednesday, Change Healthcare disconnected its systems to protect patient information.

“Once we became aware of the outside threat, in the interest of protecting our partners and patients, we took immediate action to disconnect our systems to prevent further impact,” stated Change Healthcare’s status web page.

The latest update said the company expected the disruptions to last at least through Thursday.

The company’s website states that it provides provides “industry-leading analytics, expansive data, and unparalleled connection and data transfer between providers, payers, and consumers.”

Any references that this is caused by a technical issue with MHS Genesis are “inaccurate,” military health officials stated. Genesis is the military’s electronic health record system.

Military pharmacies around the world have been posting notices about the issue and their procedures in response.

“This is impacting pharmacies at [military treatment facilities] enterprise-wide,” read a sign posted at the 19th Medical Group pharmacy at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, shared on social media Thursday. “We do not know how long it will be down. They are working to resolve it.”

At McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, the 22nd Medical Group pharmacy posted on social media that it can’t process new prescriptions.

“However, our Pharmacy remains open and will continue to dispense already-completed prescriptions. If you need a new prescription today, please contact your prescribing physician and request that they send the prescription to an alternate pharmacy within the Tricare network.”

At Kadena Air Base in Japan, officials at the medical clinic posted on Facebook Thursday morning: “Due to a systems outage, pharmacy wait times may be longer than normal today.”

But efforts to spruce up lackluster recruiting across the armed forces have yielded mixed results so far.

The Air Force has so far managed to reverse its misfortunes, exceeding its goal of 6,249 new active duty airmen by 130 people as of the end of December 2023, according to recently released Pentagon statistics.

That’s due in part to a slew of policy tweaks aimed at growing the pool of eligible prospects, a growing staff focused on battling a backlog of medical paperwork, and a fourth-quarter push to get as large of a head start on fiscal 2024 recruitment as possible.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium in Colorado, Air Force recruiting boss Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein said he is “cautiously optimistic” about staying on track for the rest of the year.

“Instead of booking weeks in advance, we’re booking multiple months in advance,” he said of shipping newcomers to boot camp. “We’re not seeing this edge of the cliff.”

America’s two largest armed forces, however, are still struggling to woo prospective troops. The Army brought in almost 6,100 new soldiers between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2023, falling short at 74% of its first-quarter goal, according to DOD. The Navy fared worse at about 5,400 new sailors, or 65% of its own target.

Still, Army recruiters are outpacing their performance from the same time last year, when they had reached just 68% of their active duty goal. The Navy’s intake rate mirrors where it stood at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2023.

The Space Force and Marine Corps, the Pentagon’s smallest branches and the only two services that reached their active duty accession goals last year, have continued that success in 2024. About 2,200 new Marines had signed up as of the end of December, exceeding the Corps’ first-quarter goal, and the Space Force gained 110 guardians to meet its own objective, DOD statistics show.

The Air Force, Space Force and Marine Corps were the only services to meet or exceed the Pentagon’s quality benchmarks for active duty recruits. For instance, the military wants at least 90% of recruits to have a high school diploma, and at least 60% of recruits must score above average on the Armed Forces Qualification Test.

Five of the military’s six reserve components also missed their recruiting goals for the first three months of fiscal 2024. The Marine Corps Reserve was the lone success: It signed up more than 1,800 new troops, around 700 more than the service had sought.

“The recruiting market remains challenging,” the Pentagon said in its undated press release. “The department continues to work collaboratively with the services to develop new strategies to address recruiting challenges.”

The U.S. military fell more than 41,000 people short of its fiscal 2023 enlisted recruiting goal as it faced a complex web of challenges ranging from dwindling interest in military service among America’s youth and the country’s obesity epidemic, to the introduction of an electronic health records system that has slowed in-processing to a crawl.

The services have addressed the problem through policy changes that have gradually broadened the pool of eligible applicants, expanding the recruiting corps and adding staffers to tackle the backlog of medical paperwork spurred by the new Genesis electronic health records system.

While Genesis aims to paint a more holistic picture of a person’s health history by pulling together medical records dating back to childhood, it can also flag old prescriptions and incidents that wouldn’t hinder a recruit’s ability to do their job. But weeding out the truly problematic cases takes time.

Nearly 9,000 prospective Air Force and Space Force recruits dropped out of consideration because of the time it took to process their medical records, Amrhein said. He added that about 70% of recruits who seek waivers for disqualifying medical conditions — like diabetes, endometriosis or depression — receive them.

“If you do the math … you’re somewhere in the ballpark of 5,600 folks that we could have likely brought in if we had a little bit more accelerated medical processing,” he said.

A total of about 400 new recruits have qualified for service under less-stringent rules around THC and tattoos, Amrhein said. Around 225 more have qualified for a college loan repayment program implemented last summer; the service estimates 500 people may be eligible for the initiative each year. And almost 200 have enlisted through a new family-and-friends referral program.

More than 2,000 additional airmen have enlisted after the service tweaked its body composition requirements last year to allow recruits with a higher percentage of body fat.

“With each of these policy changes, we have changed the lives of individuals who would have otherwise been prevented from service in the Air Force or Space Force,” Amrhein said, adding, “The caliber of our recruits remains uncompromised.”

He added that the Department of the Air Force has changed its policy on recruiting non-citizens to allow lawful permanent residents with two-year conditional Green Cards or visas to apply for service.

“This change now allows more lawful permanent residents to join our ranks and become eligible for accelerated naturalization by the virtue of their military service,” Amrhein said. “We urge our recruiters to apprise all of the legal permanent residents of this pathway to U.S. citizenship through military enlistment, and to furnish them with the necessary information.”

The Air Force argues that filling its ranks with new recruits and returning retirees, whom it invited back to staff a select list of jobs earlier this month, is crucial to maintaining military readiness as it looks to outpace China’s military ambitions.

But all of its progress is undermined by Congress’s failure to approve a new budget for fiscal 2024, Amrhein said.

“The threats of our near competitors are no longer in the faint distance,” he said. “They’re here now. … We need every resource available to ensure we’re reaching those willing to join.”

The U.S. Air Force on Tuesday released the names of the seven remaining airmen who died after their CV-22 Osprey crashed off the southern coast of Japan Nov. 29.

They are “among the giants who shape our history,” Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind said in an emailed statement Tuesday.

The tiltrotor aircraft, bearing the call sign “GUNDAM 22,” went down near Yakushima Island while carrying an eight-person crew on a routine training mission. The Air Force announced Tuesday it believes the entire crew died in the crash.

Those killed aboard GUNDAM 22 include:

• Maj. Jeffrey T. Hoernemann, 32, of Andover, Minnesota, a CV-22 instructor pilot and officer in charge of training at the 21st Special Operations Squadron at Yokota Air Base, Japan.
• Maj. Eric V. Spendlove, 36, of St. George, Utah, a residency-trained flight surgeon and medical operations flight commander assigned to the 1st Special Operations Squadron at Kadena Air Base, Japan.
• Maj. Luke A. Unrath, 34, of Riverside, California, a CV-22 pilot and flight commander at the 21st SOS.
• Capt. Terrell K. Brayman, 32, of Pittsford, New York, a CV-22 pilot and flight commander at the 21st SOS.
• Tech. Sgt. Zachary E. Lavoy, 33, of Oviedo, Florida, a medical operations flight chief at the 1st SOS.
• Staff Sgt. Jake M. Turnage, 25, of Kennesaw, Georgia, a flight engineer at the 21st SOS.
• Staff Sgt. Jake M. Galliher, 24, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an airborne linguist specializing in Mandarin Chinese assigned to Yokota’s 43rd Intelligence Squadron, Detachment 1.
• Senior Airman Brian K. Johnson, 32, of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, a flight engineer at the 21st SOS.

Galliher became the first airman recovered on Dec. 1. The military confirmed his death the following day.

After a team of military and civilian search units from the U.S. and Japan, aided by local fishermen, worked around the clock for nearly a week to locate survivors, the massive search party will now focus on bringing home the rest of the crew’s remains rather than finding them alive.

Of the eight fallen airmen, the Air Force has recovered three bodies — those of Galliher, Unrath and Lavoy. It is in the process of recovering another three troops and is still searching for two more. The service has not disclosed which airmen are missing.

After pulling flotsam believed to be aircraft debris from the sea for days, the U.S. also aims to recover the wreckage of the Osprey’s fuselage. The ocean is about 30 meters (100 feet) deep around the crash site, according to the Japanese coast guard.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families, friends and peers of all who are impacted by this mishap and loss of life,” Bauernfeind said. “In times like these, where service to our nation is not just a personal commitment but also a legacy woven into the fabric of our families, the depth of sorrow is immeasurable.”

“The honorable service of these eight airmen to this great nation will never be forgotten,” he said.

Four fatal Osprey crashes, including the latest mishap, have claimed the lives of 20 American troops in the past two years. This is the first fatal incident involving an Air Force-owned CV-22 since 2010, and the service’s deadliest accident since 2018, when nine Puerto Rico Air National Guard troops died in a WC-130 weather reconnaissance plane crash.

The crash also marked the second lethal U.S. special operations mission in November, after five soldiers died Nov. 10 in a MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crash in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

The airmen were part of the Japan-based 353rd Special Operations Wing, which flies the Osprey on transport and supply missions around the Pacific. The aircraft’s massive rotor columns allow it to take off and land like a helicopter but speed forward like an airplane, enabling it to slip in and out of areas that are inaccessible to typical planes.

The U.S. Osprey fleet has recently suffered from a series of sometimes deadly incidents known as “hard clutch engagements,” in which the aircraft’s clutch temporarily slips and then re-engages, causing an uneven distribution of power to its rotors. Such slips can cause the aircraft to lurch dangerously.

It’s unclear what caused the most recent Osprey crash or whether a faulty clutch was involved.

One Yakushima resident told Japanese news outlet NHK he saw the CV-22 turn upside down, with fire coming from one of its engines, before exploding and falling into the sea, according to the Associated Press.

Japan, which also flies the Osprey, has suspended operations of the tiltrotor aircraft amid calls for the U.S. to do the same. The Air Force has temporarily paused routine Osprey flights to focus on the investigation; the Marine Corps said Nov. 30 it will not ground the fleet.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday pledged to conduct a “rigorous and thorough investigation” into the accident and thanked Japan for its help in recovering the airmen.

“I am deeply saddened by the loss of eight American troops in a tragic aircraft crash off the coast of Japan,” he said. “The entire Department of Defense mourns alongside the families and the loved ones of those who lost their lives today in the service of their country.”

The CV-22 Osprey carrying eight American personnel crashed Nov. 29 off Yakushima island during a training mission. The body of one victim was recovered and identified earlier.

Air Force Special Operations Command said two of the five newly located remains have been recovered but their identities have yet to be determined. The joint U.S.-Japanese search operation is still working to recover the remains of three other crew members from the wreckage, it said.

The search is continuing for the two people who are still missing, it said.

“The main priority is bringing the airmen home and taking care of their family members. Support to, and the privacy of, the families and loved ones impacted by this incident remains AFSOC’s top priority,” the Air Force said in a statement.

The U.S. military on Dec. 2 identified the one confirmed victim as Air Force Staff Sgt. Jacob Galliher, 24, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Galliher enlisted in the Air Force in 2017 and became an airborne linguist specializing in Mandarin Chinese, accompanying special operations units on flights around the Pacific.

“With a ready smile, Jake brought the unit together on- and off-duty through humor and an inexhaustible supply of energy, whether it was on the aircraft, in the gym, or on the slopes with the team,” Air Force Maj. Gilbert Summers, commander of the 43rd Intelligence Squadron detachment where Galliher worked at Yokota Air Base in Japan, said in a statement Sunday. “Everywhere he went, and everyone he met, was made better for him being there. He has left an indelible mark as a devoted family man, steadfast wingman, and an irreplaceable airman in both duty and compassion.”

The U.S.-made Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but can rotate its propellers forward and cruise much faster, like an airplane, during flight. Air Force special operations units use the CV-22 to slip in and out of areas without established runways, where fixed-wing planes may not be able to land with troops and supplies.

Ospreys have had a number of crashes, including in Japan, where they are used at U.S. and Japanese military bases, and the latest accident has rekindled safety concerns. It remains unclear what caused the latest mishap.

Japan has suspended all flights of its own fleet of 14 Ospreys. Japanese officials say they have asked the U.S. military to resume Osprey flights only after ensuring their safety. The Pentagon said no such formal request has been made and that the U.S. military is continuing to fly 24 MV-22s, the Marine version of Ospreys, deployed on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.

The 353rd Special Operations Wing at Yokota, to which the downed Osprey belonged, has halted CV-22 flights other than to aid in the search.

Pieces of wreckage that Japan’s coast guard and local fishing boats have collected were handed over to the U.S. military for examination on Sunday, coast guard officials said. Japan’s military said debris it has collected would also be handed over to the U.S.

Coast guard officials said the recovered pieces of wreckage include some parts of the aircraft and an inflatable life raft, but nothing related to the cause of the crash, such as an engine. Local witnesses reported seeing fire coming from one of the engines.

Local fishing boats have helped in the search efforts, giving up their daily catch. Public broadcaster NHK said the Defense Ministry plans to cover their lost income and fuel.

Under the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, Japanese authorities are not given the right to seize or investigate U.S. military property unless the U.S. decides otherwise. That means it will be practically impossible for Japan to independently investigate the cause of the accident.

The agreement has often made Japanese investigations difficult in criminal cases involving American service members on Okinawa and elsewhere. It has been criticized as unequal by rights activists and others, including Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki, who has called for a revision.

More than 50 people have died in Osprey mishaps since 1992, according to a database maintained by the Flight Safety Foundation.

The Nov. 29 accident is the first fatal incident involving an Air Force-owned CV-22 since 2010. The crash may become the service’s deadliest since 2018, when nine Puerto Rico Air National Guard troops died in a WC-130 weather reconnaissance plane crash.

The crash also marks the second deadly U.S. special operations mission in November, after five soldiers died Nov. 10 in a MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crash in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

The remains of one airman from the eight-person crew has been recovered, the Air Force confirmed in a news release early Friday morning. The military has declared the remaining airmen in “DUSTWUN” status, or “duty status — whereabouts unknown.”

Several military and civilian search-and-rescue units are scouring the water and coastline around the island of Yakushima, Japan, where the tiltrotor Osprey crashed during a training mission, the Air Force said. The cause of the mishap remains unknown.

The downed crew was assigned to the U.S. Air Force’s 353rd Special Operations Wing at Yokota Air Base near Tokyo. The wing’s 21st Special Operations Squadron flies the Osprey, a long-range transport and supply aircraft, on emergency airlift and disaster-response missions around the Pacific.

The squadron has stopped flight operations, Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed in a statement Friday.

Members of the 353rd Special Operations Wing are aiding in the search for their fellow wingmen alongside other Pacific-based units from across the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, plus the Japanese military, coast guard and civilian volunteers that include local fishermen.

While photos from the site show that debris believed to be from the Osprey has surfaced, a sunken wreck remains missing. Japan’s coast guard on Thursday began using sonar to search underwater for the broken aircraft, which may have fallen about 100 feet down to the sea floor.

“Our sincere gratitude to all the units and Japanese partners involved in helping us locate our airmen,” Air Force Special Operations Command said Friday.

Yokota Air Base has opened an emergency assistance center to support families of airmen who were on the Osprey and others at the installation affected by the crash.

The mishap is the latest fatal incident involving a U.S.-owned Osprey aircraft, in which dozens of service members have been injured or killed in accidents around the world over the past three decades.

Four fatal Osprey crashes, including Wednesday’s accident, have claimed the lives of at least 13 American troops in the past two years.

This is the first fatal incident involving an Air Force-owned CV-22 since 2010. It may become the service’s deadliest accident since 2018, when nine Puerto Rico Air National Guard troops died in a WC-130 weather reconnaissance plane crash.

The crash also marks the second deadly U.S. special operations mission in November, after five soldiers died Nov. 10 in a MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crash in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Japan’s top government spokesperson expressed concern on Friday that the U.S. military is continuing to fly Ospreys in the country without providing adequate information about the fatal crash, despite repeated requests that it do so.

“We are concerned about the continuing Osprey flights despite our repeated requests and the absence of a sufficient explanation about their safety” from the U.S. military, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said Friday.

Japanese officials say they asked the U.S. military to halt Osprey flights in Japan except for those involved in the search operations.

The Pentagon said Thursday that U.S. Ospreys continue to operate in Japan, and Singh said she was not aware of an official request from Japan to ground them.

“All V-22 Ospreys in Japan operate only after undergoing thorough maintenance and safety checks,” she said in the statement Friday. “We have already started sharing information about the accident with our Japanese partners, and have pledged to continue to do so in a timely and transparent manner.”

The Marine Corps “does not plan to ground MV-22s anywhere,” service spokeswoman Capt. Alyssa Myers told Military Times Thursday.

Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said he met with the commander of U.S. Forces Japan, Lt. Gen. Ricky Rupp, on Thursday afternoon and repeated his request that flights be allowed only after the aircraft’s safety is confirmed. He acknowledged that he did not specifically use the words “grounding” or “suspension.”

Kihara said he asked Rupp to explain what measures are being taken for Osprey flights in Japan in response to the crash.

On Thursday, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa met with U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and asked the United States “to promptly provide information to the Japanese side.”

U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command said the CV-22B Osprey that crashed was one of six deployed at Yokota Air Base, home to U.S. Forces Japan and Fifth Air Force, the service’s organization focused on joint operations with Japan.

The hybrid aircraft take off and land like a helicopter, but can rotate their propellers forward and cruise much faster, like an airplane, during flight.

The aircraft had departed from the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, in Yamaguchi prefecture and crashed on its way to Kadena Air Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa, Japanese officials said.

The aircraft had requested an emergency landing at the Yakushima airport about five minutes before it was lost from radar, NHK public television and other news outlets reported. One Yakushima resident told NHK he saw the aircraft turn upside down, with fire coming from one of its engines, and then an explosion before it fell into the sea.

A total of 44 Ospreys have been deployed at U.S. and Japanese military bases in Japan. In Okinawa, where about half of the 50,000 American troops in Japan are based, Gov. Denny Tamaki called on Japan’s defense and foreign ministries to request the U.S. military to suspend all Osprey flights in Japan, including in search operations.

“It is extremely regrettable that Ospreys are still flying in Okinawa,” Tamaki said in a statement Thursday. “I have serious doubts about Osprey safety even for their search and rescue operations.”

In 2022, Air Force Special Operations Command ordered a temporary stand-down of its Osprey fleet following back-to-back safety incidents where the Osprey clutch slipped, causing an uneven distribution of power to its rotors.

The Marine Corps and Navy have reported similar clutch slips, and each service has worked to address the issue in their aircraft. However, clutch failure was also cited in a 2022 fatal U.S. Marine Corps Osprey crash that killed five.

“Dual hard clutch engagement” led to engine failure, according to the investigation of that crash.

Separately, a U.S. Marine Corps Osprey with 23 Marines aboard crashed on a northern Australian island in August, killing three Marines and critically injuring at least five others who were taking part in a multinational training exercise.

The status of the other seven airmen who were aboard the aircraft, as well as what caused the incident, remained unclear. The crew was assigned to the Air Force’s 353rd Special Operations Wing at Yokota Air Base outside Tokyo.

The mishap is the latest fatal incident involving a U.S.-owned Osprey, in which dozens of service members have been injured or killed in accidents around the world over the past three decades.

Four fatal Osprey crashes, including Wednesday’s accident, have claimed the lives of at least 13 American troops in the past two years.

This is the first fatal incident involving an Air Force-owned CV-22 since 2010, and potentially the service’s deadliest accident since 2018, when nine Puerto Rico Air National Guard troops died in a WC-130 weather reconnaissance plane crash.

What is the CV-22 Osprey?

The CV-22 Osprey that went down Wednesday is a variant of the V-22 model produced through a partnership between Boeing and Textron’s Bell.

The tiltrotor aircraft — known for its towering nacelles that allow it to launch and land like a helicopter, and speed forward like a fixed-wing plane — began entering the U.S. inventory in 1999 with the Marine Corps MV-22.

That program started as a behind-schedule, over-budget invention that claimed dozens of lives during development. In the decades since, Ospreys have proven valuable for their speed and versatility, flying faster than conventional helicopters to approach enemies from unexpected angles or rush wounded troops to emergency care.

The Air Force received its first combat-ready CV-22 in 2007, and the Navy’s CMV-22 variant took flight in 2020 and deployed with carrier air wings in 2021. None of the sea service’s Ospreys have been involved in fatal mishaps. Japan’s military operates its own Ospreys as well.

The U.S. military now owns hundreds of Ospreys, largely operated by the Marines. Air Force special operations units use the CV-22 to slip in and out of areas without established runways, where fixed-wing planes may not be able to land with troops and supplies.

Ospreys can carry nearly three dozen service members or 10,000 pounds of cargo at a time, according to an Air Force fact sheet. Each is armed with a .50-caliber machine gun, and cost $90 million apiece as of 2020.

The Yokota-based unit involved in the most recent mishap activated squadrons in 2019 to operate and maintain CV-22 Ospreys as part of the Pentagon’s growing footprint in the Pacific.

But the technological advancements that the V-22 fleets brought to combat and training are still shadowed by concerns about the platform’s longevity and safety.

“CV-22 readiness keeps me up at night,” then-Col. Dale White, who oversaw acquisition and sustainment for the Air Force’s special operations platforms, said in 2019. “It’s not what it needs to be. It’s a tough platform to maintain.”

What problems has the Osprey faced lately?

A combination of pilot error and mechanical failures have contributed to periodic Osprey crashes that, when fatal, have killed multiple troops at once. The military has recently turned its focus to tackling a problem known as a “hard clutch engagement.”

Last year, Air Force Special Operations Command temporarily grounded its Ospreys following back-to-back safety incidents in which the Osprey’s clutch temporarily slipped and then re-engaged, causing an uneven distribution of power to its massive rotors. Such slips can cause the aircraft to lurch dangerously.

A hard clutch engagement on both sides of a Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey in June 2022 led to a crash that killed five Marines in California.

Then in February, the V-22 Joint Program Office — which manages the tri-service fleet — grounded an undisclosed number of Ospreys with more than 800 flight hours to replace aging clutch-related components.

The office claimed in July it had reduced the likelihood of hard clutch engagements, or HCEs, by 99%.

“The V-22 community executed 22,258 flight hours between Feb. 3, 2023 and July 19, 2023, with zero HCE events,” the Joint Program Office said at the time.

The following month, three Marines were killed when their Osprey crashed in northern Australia. The Marine Corps is still investigating what caused the accident.

“I wouldn’t right now apply a sweeping broad stroke across every incident linking them together,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said when asked in August whether a clutch malfunction was to blame for those fatalities.

It’s unclear whether Wednesday’s crash involved a hard clutch engagement.

According to the Associated Press, Japanese news outlet NHK quoted a local resident as saying he saw the aircraft turned upside down, with fire coming from one of its engines, and then an explosion before it fell to the sea.

A non-exhaustive history of Osprey accidents

• October 2023: A Marine was injured after a Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey experienced a hard landing during a training event in Nevada. “Initial assessments indicate the incident was likely not mechanical in nature,” a Marine Corps spokesman said in October.
• September 2023: Three Marine Corps Ospreys diverted from scheduled flight paths in a single week due to “caution indications” in the cockpit. The service said the warnings did not appear to be prompted by clutch issues.
• August 2023: Three Marines were killed in an MV-22 Osprey crash in Australia during a multinational training exercise.
• October 2022: The engine of an Marine Corps Osprey caught fire during training at Air Station Miramar, California. No one was injured.
• Summer 2022: Air Force Special Operations Command’s CV-22 Osprey aircraft face two hard clutch engagement problems.
• June 2022: A problem with the clutch of an MV-22 Osprey aircraft caused the June 2022 crash that killed five Marines, according to a Marine Corps investigation released this July.
• March 2022: Marine Corps aviation investigators have determined that a fatal March 18 MV-22B Osprey crash near Bodo, Norway, that killed four Marines was pilot error.
• September 2017: Two service members were injured when a Marine MV-22B made a hard landing in Syria.
• August 2017: Three Marines were killed when their MV-22B Osprey crashed off Queensland, Australia.
• May 2015: Marine Corps officials determined that decisions made by pilots in low-visibility conditions contributed to an MV-22B Osprey crash in Hawaii that left two dead and 20 more injured.
• October 2014: One Marine died when he jumped from an MV-22B Osprey that nearly crashed shortly after taking off from the flight deck of an amphibious assault ship. The Defense Department reclassified his death as one that occurred in support of the military’s effort to combat the Islamic State group, making him the first official casualty of Operation Inherent Resolve.
• June 2012: Five airmen were injured when a CV-22 was destabilized by the wake of another Osprey near Hurlburt Field, Florida.
• April 2012: Two Marines died and two were severely injured when an MV-22 Osprey crashed in a Moroccan military training area while participating in a bilateral exercise.
• April 2010: A CV-22 Osprey accident near Qalat, Afghanistan, killed four people and injured 16 of the 20 onboard.
• April 2000: An MV-22 Osprey crash at Marana Regional Airport in Arizona killed 19 Marines.

Marine Corps Times reporter Irene Loewenson contributed to this story.