Lt. Gen. Jon M. Davis, the USMC’s deputy commandant for Aviation, disclosed that a AV-8B that crashed in September off Okinawa had went into a spin.
By U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jason Robertson; The original uploader was Looper5920 at English Wikipedia, 2007-04-07 (original upload date) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
“That bothers me because I grew up flying Harriers,” Davis said. “We don’t know why it went into a spin. The airplane is supposed to be very spin-resistant. I’ve never spun a Harrier and I’ve got 3,300 hours or something flying a Harrier.”
As a precaution, Davis ordered to have wing tanks removed when Harriers are flying air combat training missions.