V-22 Osprey aircraft barred from flying more than 30 minutes after eight soldiers die
The flight ban on the V-22 Osprey aircraft was lifted in March, months after eight service members died in a crash off the coast of Japan last year.
The V-22 Osprey fleet are not allowed to fly for more than half an hour from the landing airfield months after the US military lifted the grounding order on the aircraft, according to local reports.
This restriction comes after the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy lifted the flight ban on its tiltrotor V-22 Osprey aircraft in March.
The Osprey has been grounded for almost three months following a crash that killed eight service members off the coast of Japan last November during a training mission.
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The latest incident marks the fourth V-22 crash over the last two years, raising questions on whether is is safe to fly.
Even after the flight ban has been lifted, there are still restrictions in place that limits the Osprey's ability to operate in its fullest capacity, according to Military.com.
Among the restrictions include prohibiting the flight crew from flying the tiltrotor aircraft for more than 30 minutes after taking off from its landing field.
It was unclear what would kind of landing zone would be used to accompany the Osprey which, by design, take offs like a helicopter and transitions to fly like an airplane by tilting the rotors forward.
The Osprey can also clock at a speed of 315 miles per hour, almost twice as fast as a helicopter's top speed at 250 miles per hour.
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This restriction has prompted the US military, such as the Navy, to rely on alternative aircrafts to "conduct long-range infiltration, exfiltration and resupply missions for special operations forces."
One of the alternatives was the Grumman C-2 Greyhound, an aging twin-engine aircraft that was originally supposed to be replaced by the Ospreys as the primary tiltrotor military aircraft.
A return to getting the Osprey aircraft back in the air, however, remains a sensitive topic in Japan, where public opinion is mixed.
The flight ban was lifted in March following a "meticulous and data-driven approach" to reach the decision in what the Pentagon believed was a "mechanical failure" that crashed the Osprey crash.
