Originally Posted by plift

Oh, and nowadays the plane has a crew alerting system that warns of sink rate once you hit 800 fpm descent in a hover(which is well prior to the descent rates needed to actually get VRS on the Osprey). So I doubt the crew let a rate of descent develop to where VRS was the cause of this accident. Regardless of what caused the descent, I think the crew did a great job of keeping the plane level so the landing gear, airframe, and crash attenuating seats could be effective during the impact.