Over half of the Air Force’s Osprey fleet has been cleared to fly after a deadly crash prompted a military-wide grounding

The Gundam 22 crew did press on after the chip burn lights and did not violate their training. Following the crash, AFSOC changed its policies, and crews are now advised to land as soon as practical after a single chip burn and “as soon as possible” following a second chip burn.

Amber Sax, the wife of Capt. John Sax, a pilot who died on a Marine Corps Osprey when it crashed into the southern California desert on June 8, 2022, told Military.com she still doesn’t believe there are enough public-facing solutions to the mechanical problems that have plagued the aircraft.

“The fear many surviving family members continue to have is that the failures that caused the loss of their loved one have not been fully addressed and corrected. We each have a list of friends, some we consider family, who continue to fly in the Osprey,” Sax said. “The thought of 20 or more, given the number of lives an Osprey can carry, haunts many of us daily. We need to know it’s been fixed, and it won’t happen again.”

Conley reiterated his confidence in the steps AFSOC had taken to address the issues and said, in regard to the Gundam 22 crash, that “the data suggests it’s very rare.”

“To be blunt about it, I would not put the men and women of AFSOC back in the plane if I wasn’t confident that it could do what we needed to do,” Conley added.

Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.