It was good news for the families of late Lt. Col. John Brow and Maj. Brooks Gruber after Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work stated officially that the two men were incorrectly blamed as the primary cause of a V-22 crash in April 2000 that killed them and 17 other Marines.
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By Cpl Christopher Q. Stone [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
“The totality of evidence confirms the adage that every accident is the result of an interrelated chain of events …. After considering all of the links in the chain that led to this particular accident, I disagree with the characterization that the pilots’ drive to accomplish the mission was ‘the fatal factor’ in the crash.”
“Human factors undoubtedly contributed to the Marana accident,” Work said. “However, it is clear that there were deficiencies in the V-22’s development and engineering and safety programs that were corrected only after the crash – and these deficiencies likely contributed to the accident and its fatal outcome. I therefore conclude it is impossible to point to a single ‘fatal factor’ that caused this crash.”