I was told years ago by an aviator that they were padding the maintenance hours on these aircraft… -Jack

The Air Force has fired the commander of a special operations squadron a week after a CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft in his unit crashed in Florida, NBC News confirmed on Thursday.

Lt. Col. Matt Glover, who commanded the 8th Special Operations Squadron based at Hurlburt Field in Florida, was relieved from his duties because of a loss of confidence, a military official told NBC News.

The Osprey, designed to take off and land like a helicopter and fly like a twin turboprop airplane, crashed on a training mission north of Navarre, Fla., on June 13 in a 750-square mile military training area called the Elgin Range. Five crew members were hospitalized with injuries.

On Wednesday, two of the airmen injured in the crash remained in the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, the Air Force reported. Officials are investigating.

This crash, along with a fatal MV-22 crash in Morocco in April, have raised new safety concerns among Japanese leaders and citizens ahead of an expected deployment of MV-22 Ospreys to Japan, NBC News reported. The MV-22 is the Marine Corps’ version of the same aircraft.

Read the rest at MSNBC.