Flight security

Disturbing string of crashes in 2018 continues deadly trend for US military

There have been five noncombat aviation crashes in 2018, killing nine service members — 37 were killed in aircraft crashes last year, nearly double the number killed in 2016.

Only 37 percent of Marine Corps CH-53E heavy-lift helicopters can fly right now, the head of Marine Corps aviation, Lt. Gen. Steven R. Rudder, told Congress in November.

“If you are flying a smaller number of airplanes, they break more frequently, and if you can’t pay for the parts, you have a smaller number of airplanes, and so you’re not getting the hours,” Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller told a Reagan National Defense Forum audience moderated by Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin in December.

“Last year in aviation, we had a horrible safety year, probably the worst year in 10 years,” Neller added.

“I think the high-op tempo and stress on the force over the past 17 years of continuous combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere is catching up to the U.S. military,” Todd Harrison, a defense expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Task & Purpose.

The Pentagon just received $700 billion in the massive spending bill signed by Trump last month — a sizable portion of that is supposed to help fix aircraft and improve pilot training.