Crashes mar Marines' hopes for Osprey

The tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey is designed to take off and land like a helicopter but fly like a fixed-wing airplane at twice a helicopter's speed and twice as far. Its primary use will be moving U.S. troops in and out of military hot spots and conducting civilian rescue operations.

Built by a consortium of Boeing and Bell Helicopter, the Osprey can carry up to 24 people or 15,000 pounds of cargo -- twice the capacity of the Vietnam-era CH-46 helicopters it is designed to replace.

Those features make it one of the U.S. Marine Corps' top priorities. The Pentagon wants to purchase a total of 458 Ospreys, 360 of which would be the Marines' MV-22 model. The rest would go to the Air Force and Navy.

The first Osprey flew in 1989 and began military flight tests in December 1991. It has yet to be used in actual missions. Critics take aim at its high cost -- more than $110 million per plane at current estimates -- and safety record, including fatal crashes involving the Osprey and a prototype.

In the early 1990s, the Bush administration tried to abandon the Osprey program, but the Marines convinced President Bill Clinton to revive it once he took office. However, the deaths of 23 Marines in Osprey crashes in April and December 2000 have placed the aircraft under new scrutiny.

The commander of the Marine Corps' only V-22 squadron, Lt. Col. Odin Fred Leberman, was relieved after admitting to superiors that he asked for maintenance records to be falsified to make the Osprey look more reliable. Leberman faces possible criminal charges.

Marine Corps officials said the allegations had nothing to do with the crashes.

Gen. James Jones, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in March that he would give up the Osprey if an independent review found it unsafe. But he said going back to traditional helicopters would be "a step backward."