Osprey Crash

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon will lift the ban on flights by the grounded V-22 Osprey next week, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Friday, following a high-level meeting where Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin endorsed the military services' plans for a safe and measured return to operations.

The officials said that Naval Air Systems Command, which grounded the controversial[1] tilt-rotor aircraft about three months ago, will lift it and allow the services to begin implementing their plans to get the Osprey back into the air. Austin met with the top service leaders, including for the Navy[2] and Air Force[3], on Friday morning, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans not yet made public.

The Osprey has been grounded for almost three months following a Nov. 29 Air Force Special Operations Command crash in Japan that killed eight service members.[4] The Japan incident and an earlier August Osprey crash in Australia that killed three Marines are both still under investigation. The Air Force has said that it has identified what failed[5] in the Japan crash, even though it does not know yet why it failed.

In the months since, the services have worked on plans to mitigate the known material failure by conducting additional safety checks and establishing a new, more conservative approach to how the Osprey is operated.

Officials said the U.S. military will also share its plans with Japan, which is the only international partner involved in the Osprey program. Japan also grounded its fleet of 14 V-22s after the November crash. Prior to the grounding, the U.S. Marine Corps[6] routinely used Ospreys in that country.

A return to flight is a sensitive topic in Japan, where public opinion on the Osprey is mixed. Officials said the U.S. is committed to a safe process, and the fleet will not fly again there until Japan has had an opportunity to be briefed on the services' plan.

The head of Naval Air Systems Command is expected to fly to Japan next week to brief the Ministry of Defense and Japanese government in person on the plans, and no Ospreys will fly until that briefing has occurred, according to another U.S. official who was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Osprey is a military aircraft that can take off like a helicopter and fly like an airplane. A string of accidents over the last two years has renewed questions on whether it is safe to fly.

The military-wide grounding has left the deepest impact on the U.S. Marine Corps, which relies on more than 300 MV-22 Osprey[7]s to conduct a major part of its aviation mission. Air Force Special Operations Command has about 50 CV-22[8]B Ospreys. The Navy is planning on replacing its C-2 Greyhounds, which transport passengers to aircraft carriers, with more than two dozen CMV-22 Ospreys.

The presidential fleet also uses a limited number of Ospreys to ferry White House staff, security personnel and reporters. Those aircraft have also been grounded.

© Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Read more

A soldier poses for a photo with no shirt on.Army Capt. David B. Winne, a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is an explosive ordnance disposal officer and instructor at the Naval School of Explosive Ordnance Disposal at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. The graduate from Liberty University in Virginia

Read more

Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, seated second from right, appears in U.S. District Court, in Boston, Wednesday, April 19, 2023. (Margaret Small/AP Photo)

BOSTON -- Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guard member[1] accused of leaking highly classified military documents on a social media platform, is expected to plead guilty in his federal case, according to court papers filed Thursday.

Prosecutors asked the judge to schedule a change of plea hearing for Monday, but no other details were immediately available. Teixeira had previously pleaded not guilty.

Teixeira was indicted on six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information. Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The Massachusetts U.S. attorney's office declined further comment. An attorney for Teixeira didn't immediately return a phone message Thursday.

Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, has been behind bars since his April arrest[2] for a leak that left the Biden administration scrambling to assess and contain the damage among the international community and reassure allies that its secrets are safe with the U.S.

He was accused of sharing classified military documents about Russia's war in Ukraine[3] and other sensitive national security topics on Discord, a social media platform popular with people who play online games. Investigators believe he led a private chat group called Thug Shaker Central, where enthusiasts shared jokes, talked about their favorite types of guns and discussed wars, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Authorities say Teixeira, who enlisted in the Air National Guard in 2019, began around January 2023 sharing military secrets with other Discord users -- first by typing out classified documents and then sharing photographs of files that bore SECRET and TOP SECRET markings. Teixeira worked as a "cyber transport systems specialist," essentially an IT specialist responsible for military communications networks.

Authorities have said that Teixeira was detected on April 6 -- the day The New York Times first published a story about the breach of documents -- searching for the word "leak" in a classified system. The FBI says that was reason to believe Teixeira was trying to find information about the investigation into who was responsible for the leaks.

Prosecutors say he continued to leak government secrets even after he was warned by superiors about[4] mishandling and improper viewing of classified information. After being admonished by superiors, he was again seen viewing information not related to the intelligence field, not his primary duty, according to internal Air National Guard memos filed in court.

Authorities have provided few details about an alleged possible motive, but accounts of those in the online private chat group where the documents were disclosed have depicted Teixeira as motivated more by bravado than ideology.

Prosecutors had urged the judge to keep Teixeira jailed while the case played out, in part because of an arsenal of weapons found at his home and his history of disturbing online statements. They included one social media post saying that, if he had his way, he would like to kill a "ton of people" because it would be "culling the weak minded."

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani last year denied Teixeira's bid for release, saying "No set of release conditions will reasonably assure the safety of the community, or prevent destruction of evidence."

In pressing for their client to be freed from jail, Teixeira's attorneys pointed to the pretrial release of former President Donald Trump and others in high-profile classified documents cases. Teixeira's lawyers noted that prosecutors did not seek to detain Trump -- or his co-defendant, Walt Nauta -- even though they said the former president and his valet "possess extraordinary means to flee the United States."

© Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Read more

More Articles …