Investigators Wait to Recover Crash Victims

MARANA, Ariz. —  Military investigators were evaluating the charred wreckage of an Osprey aircraft Monday to determine whether it was safe to recover the bodies of 19 Marines killed in a fiery crash.

Investigators wanted to ensure that nothing combustible remained among the unusual aircraft’s remnants scattered at the airport where the Osprey went down Saturday night, said Lt. Mark Carter, a spokesman for the Yuma air station where the flight originated.

Lt. Gen. Fred McCorkle, deputy Marine Corps commandant in charge of aviation, said the fiery Saturday night crash of the Osprey--which takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane--was witnessed by the crew chief of a nearby MV-22 and captured electronically by an FA-18 Marine jet fighter on its night-targeting device.

“I think that within a week we’ll have a pretty good idea” of what caused the accident, McCorkle told reporters, adding that key information would also be obtained from the flight data recorder, which has yet to be recovered.

He said there was no final emergency communication from the doomed aircraft and no way to tell yet whether the crash was caused by pilot error or mechanical failure.

The plane crashed while landing at the Marana Northwest Regional Airport, about 25 miles northwest of Tucson, during a nighttime evacuation exercise.

The Pentagon said it won’t fly the Marine Corps’ four remaining Osprey aircraft immediately, while investigators try to determine what caused the accident.

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Marines Probe Fatal Flight

Investigators continued to search for clues Monday to the cause of the crash of a MV-22 Osprey hybrid airplane-helicopter that took the lives of 19 Marines.

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times