All eyes were on presidential candidate and sitting Vice President Kamala Harris this week as the Democratic National Convention kicked off. One clip of Harris’s movements, in particular, got a lot of attention from those interested in military technology — the Vice President boarding an MV-22 tiltrotor on a short trip to the convention hall.
In a week of big White House airlift news, with the first flight of the president aboard the VH-92 Patriot as Marine One, many were wondering if this was Harris’s first ride aboard an Osprey, an aircraft that is still seeing serious fallout from a fatal crash last year that prompted a three-month-long grounding of the type globally.
When we saw the clip of Harris boarding one of Marine Helicopter Squadron One’s (HMX-1) ‘Green Top’ MV-22s, which are heavily tasked with flying around White House aides, U.S. Secret Service Counter Assault Team (CAT) members, and the press corps during executive travel, we wondered the same thing.
The Vice President usually moves around on ‘White Top’ VH-60N and VH-3D executive helicopters from HMX-1, which are maintained and secured to extreme standards, and also offers secure strategic communications and a very capable self-protection suite. In the past, Harris has traveled in other U.S. military helicopters operated by units other than HMX-1, especially during trips abroad.
It took a few days for the White House Military Office, Naval Air Systems Command’s (NAVAIR) Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), and the U.S. Marine Corps to run down an answer for us. The biggest issue was that while traveling far from Washington, D.C., sometimes HMX-1’s MV-22s are not used. Instead, Marine Ospreys located closer to the destination are assigned to the mission. As such, the Marines had to look into taskings with these other aircraft. As it turns out, not only has Harris flown on an Osprey before this week, and those belonging to HMX-1 specifically, but so did Vice President Mike Pence during his term in office.
“With regards to the V-22, Vice Presidents have flown on HMX-1’s V-22s before – including the current and former Vice President,” Neil Lobeda, a spokesman for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, told us. The U.S. Marine Corps provided us with an identical statement.
HMX-1 received its first MV-22 in May 2013 and the Ospreys had completely replaced the squadron’s ‘Green Top’ CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters by July of the following year.
The Osprey, which has already long had a controversial reputation, has found itself newly embattled in the aftermath of a deadly Air Force CV-22 crash off of Japan’s Yakushima Island in November 2023. This, in turn, led all V-22 variants worldwide, including those belonging to the Japan Self-Defense Forces, the only current foreign operator of the Osprey, to be grounded for three months, with some limited exceptions. Since the grounding was lifted in March, V-22s have been operating under strict flight restrictions.
The Air Force has subsequently determined that catastrophic gearbox failure was the immediate source of the CV-22 accident last year, but also blamed actions by the pilot as being significant contributing factors, as you can read more about here.
However, Military.com reported just a day after Harris took her Osprey flight in Chicago that internal safety documents it obtained showed the gearbox issue at the core of the November 2023 crash was known as early as 2013. That outlet also reported that a manufacturer safety notice had then been issued in 2014, but that this information had apparently not been widely disseminated.
An additional a report today from The Air Current, also citing internal documents, further explained that the gearbox issue is tied to a “persistent manufacturing problem” that could have implications well beyond the Osprey. “It’s not clear why details of the specific risks posed by this material defect were not shared with V-22 operators,” the story from that outlet adds.
Officially, U.S. Marine Corps Ospreys have a mishap rate that sits well within the average for aircraft types that service operates.
While HMX-1’s fleet is kept to especially high maintenance standards, having Vice President Harris riding aboard a V-22 of any kind is certainly a show of confidence in the platform at a time when it could really use it.
Contact the author: tyler@twz.com