Afghanistan — Osprey Crash in Afghanistan Kills 3 Troops, Civilian

Amer­i­can Forces Press Service 

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2010 — A U.S. Air Force CV-22 Osprey crashed in south­ern Afghanistan late last night, killing three U.S. ser­vice­mem­bers, one civil­ian employ­ee and injur­ing numer­ous oth­er ser­vice­mem­bers.

The cause of the crash is unknown, offi­cials with NATO’s Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force said. Offi­cials said the air­craft was car­ry­ing U.S. troops when it crashed sev­en miles west of Qalat City in Zab­ul province. The injured were trans­port­ed to a near­by base for med­ical treatment. 

The CV-22, a mod­i­fied ver­sion of the Marine Corps MV-22, con­ducts long-range infil­tra­tion and resup­ply for U.S. forces. It employs tilt-rotor tech­nol­o­gy that allows it to take off and land as a heli­copter, and fly like a fixed-wing air­craft. (From an Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force news release.) 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)