Air Force Special Operations Command says it is weeks from deploying its fleet of CV-22B Osprey aircraft for counter terror operations, after grounding its crews in the wake of a fatal crash last November in Japan.

The military grounded Ospreys after a fatal crash in November 2023, and Air Force Special Operations Command is gradually returning them to the air.

The Bell-Boeing CV-22 tiltrotors will soon return to combat duty, 10 months after a deadly crash in 2023 killed eight special mission airmen and grounded the USA's entire Osprey fleet.

The Pentagon grounded its entire fleet of Ospreys in late 2023 after a deadly crash off the coast of Japan killed eight airmen in November. The aircraft were cleared to fly again in March with some limitations: flights and missions have to stay within 30 minutes of a “suitable divert airfield.”

The Air Force is gearing up to bring back the historically troubled Osprey aircraft for fleet-wide deployment, despite ongoing concerns over safety and reliability, Military.com reported Wednesday. The Osprey — an aircraft that can take off vertically like a helicopter and fly horizontally like a plane using tiltrotor propellers — was grounded in December following a string of deadly crashes as a result of mechanical failures.