As Congress investigates the Osprey, families balance grief with pilots’ love for the warplane

By TARA COPP
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House subcommittee is holding a hearing on the troubled safety record of the Osprey aircraft and whether the program has adequate Pentagon oversight. Wednesday’s hearing is being closely watched by families that have lost loved ones in Osprey crashes, including one off Japan’s coast in November that killed eight service members. That crash has reverberated within the Osprey community. Grieving families know the crews were passionate about the Osprey, which flies like an airplane and then tilts its rotors and engines to land like a helicopter. But the crashes keep happening. And none of the families can stomach the idea of another family facing this kind of grief.