He says, “It’s an extraordinarily complex set of circumstances that caused this to happen. And it could be something that might depend on how quickly you move the nacelle. The wind was gusting that day. It was gusting between 15 and 27 knots. It’s a pretty big span of wind. And 20, 25 knots of wind is a pretty significant. It’s a pretty strong wind.”

There are some limitations to the aircraft, he says, “to the speed with which you can move the nacelles or to the angle that you can move them depending on the air speed. In this particular case, this is in an area where the rate at which the nacelles can move is slowed down considerably, but it is ... not an area that currently precludes you from being able to move them at all. You just have to move them more slowly.”

The Marine Corps is looking to change the way it teaches its pilots and uses simulators to avoid similar crashes in the future.

While the Corps want to emphasize the aircraft’s safety as it deploys Ospreys to Japan, Schmidle says the bigger issue is protecting Marines.