Five families of U.S. Marines who died in a crash of an Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft in 2022 have filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the aircraft’s manufacturers.
An investigation released in July 2023 by the Marine Corps found a “dual hard clutch engagement [HCE]” created a single engine and interconnect drive system (ICDS) failure, resulting in a “catastrophic loss of thrust on the right-hand proprotor.”
Tragically lost in the crash were Captain John Sax, 33, of Placer, California; Captain Nicholas Losapio, 31, of Rockingham, New Hampshire; Corporal Nathan Carlson, 21, of Winnebago, Illinois; Corporal Seth Rasmuson, 21, of Johnson, Wyoming; and Lance Corporal Evan Strickland, 19, of Valencia, New Mexico.
The group were performing a routine training flight in the California desert near the Arizona border.
The lawsuit filed this week names Boeing and Bell Textron, which designed, manufactured, and assembled the Osprey, and Rolls-Royce, which manufactured the engine.
The lawsuit claims the entire aircraft was “defective and unreasonably dangerous” because “it did not meet the government’s specifications for operation, durability, endurance, or reliability.”
“Our military members deserve equipment and aircraft free of failures, especially failures that can cause the loss of their lives,” Amber Sax, a plaintiff in the case and widow of Captain John Sax, said in a statement. “I should have been growing old with my husband, our two children shouldn’t be growing up without their father.”
The lawsuit lists issues with the Osprey’s ICDS, which transfers power from one engine to both of the two rotors in case a rotor engine fails.
“The Osprey’s ICDS also lacks redundancy, contributes to catastrophic systems failure, and grossly fails to meet specifications, because it allows a HCE on one side to initiate a HCE on the other side, which results in the assured loss of the aircraft and occupants with no corrective action available to the brave military pilots and crew, who are along for the ride to their deaths,” the lawsuit stated.
Earlier this year, authorities confirmed that five U.S. Marines aboard a military helicopter that crashed in the mountains near San Diego had died.
The CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter was reported missing during a routine training flight from Creech Air Force Base, northwest of Las Vegas, to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, said the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. The aircraft was located at the time near Pine Valley, approximately 45 miles east of San Diego.
Maj. Gen. Michael Borgschulte, commanding general of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, expressed deep sadness over the loss of the Marines. “To the families of our fallen Marines, we send our deepest condolences,” he said.