Anyone watching the skies over Portland this past weekend may have noticed an unusual aircraft landing at Portland International Jetport in South Portland.
Two V-22 Osprey touched down at Northeast Air, the executive terminal and maintenance center at the airport.
The military aircraft built by Bell Boeing has tilt rotors that allow it to take off and land vertically, like a helicopter, but fly like a fixed-wing aircraft.
Stanley Jordan, who lives off Highland Avenue in South Portland, said he saw the two Ospreys land at the jetport Friday and his wife spotted them again Monday morning near Pleasant Hill in Scarborough.
“They are very unusual. I was astonished to see them up in Maine,” Jordan said.
The aircraft are used by the Marines, Navy and Air Force. Last year, a Marine from Bethel was killed when an Osprey crashed into the ocean during a training mission off the coast of Australia.
Ospreys have flown into Portland before to refuel on their way to exercises or other missions, said Dexter Tatum, a line manager at Northeast Air.
The Marines don’t regularly stop at the airport, but visits are not unusual, Tatum added.
“It was just a basic trip as far as I know,” he said.
Osprey aircraft are no stranger in Maine. Ospreys from Marine Corps Air Station New River in Jacksonville, North Carolina, have refueled at Brunswick Executive Airport, the former Navy airfield, a number of times, and three Ospreys flew low over Lewiston-Auburn in January. One of the aircraft also stopped in Stonington last May, according to a resident’s Facebook post. Marines reportedly picked up lobster and shellfish during that trip.
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