With All V-22s Grounded, The Navy’s Venerable C-2s Are Pitching In

As of today, there is only one Bell V-22 Osprey tiltrotor unit operating in the U.S. military. As a result, the U.S. Pacific Fleet has reverted to using the C-2A Greyhound.

Following the late November crash of a U.S. Air Force Special Operations CV-22B near Yakushima Island, Japan in which eight airmen were lost, all Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force Ospreys were grounded on December 6.

Only Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron VMM-162 (part of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit) which flies MV-22Bs has been given special permission to conduct limited operations because it has detachments on currently deployed ships including the USS Bataan (LHD-5) and USS Carter Hall (LSD-50) in the Red Sea and USS Mesa Verde (LPD-19) in the Eastern Mediterranean.

All other Ospreys are grounded. That has left some U.S. Pacific Fleet aircraft carriers without their vital carrier onboard delivery aircraft (COD). Most of the West Coast-based carriers in the Fleet began using the CMV-22B variant of the Osprey as CODs starting with the first deployment of the tiltrotors on USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) in 2021.