Japan's fleet of hybrid-helicopter military aircraft have been cleared to resume operations after being grounded following an accident last month.
A V-22 Osprey tilted and hit the ground as it was taking off during a joint exercise with the U.S. military on Oct. 27. An investigation has found human error was the cause.
The aircraft was carrying 16 people when it "became unstable" on takeoff from a Japanese military base on Yonaguni, a remote island west of Okinawa. The flight was aborted and nobody was injured, Japan's Ground Self Defense Forces GSDF said at the time.
In a statement on Thursday, the GSDF said the pilots had failed to turn on a switch designed to temporarily increase engine output during take off, causing the aircraft to descend and sway uncontrollably.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said an internal investigation determined that the accident was caused by a human error, not by "physical or external factors."
