The Osprey program means 600 jobs in his district.

A four-member panel conducting a review of the Osprey program is preparing to hold its first public hearing this Friday.

The crash was the fourth the Osprey program has endured since 1991 and the second this year.

Nearly 20 years old, the Osprey program has become emblematic of the type of high-tech Pentagon weapons system that seems too big to die.

If investigators determined that a mechanical malfunction caused the crash, he said, it would raise "very fundamental questions" about the future of the Osprey program.

Controversy has dogged the Osprey program since its inception in 1981.

Today's announcement follows two years of upheaval in the Osprey program.

The latest accusations emerged just as the Marines were hoping to rehabilitate the Osprey program.

But if money is restored to the Osprey program, cuts will have to be made elsewhere.