According to a recent internal study conducted by the Marine Corps, budgeting issues have combined with the advancing age of America’s Super Stallion fleet to create an extremely dangerous situation. Overall, CH-53 Super Stallion readiness is rated at just 23 percent fleet wide. Of the 196 Super Stallions that are required to be operational at any given time, only 33 of them are actually considered combat capable, and the force has only 146 that could be repaired or serviced to bring back to operational standing.
The issue of having too few flight-capable CH-53s has also made it nearly impossible for pilots to receive adequate training on the air frame, increasing the likelihood of pilot error resulting in a crash.
“Pilots returning from six-month deployments with only 30 total flight hours and pilots completing their first operational tours with too few hours to become aircraft commanders,” The report
read.
