A group of Air Force CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft were photographed at a Vietnam airport last week, marking their first landfall in the Southeast Asian nation.
Freelance journalist Duan Dang tweeted out the photo of four Ospreys landing at the Danang International Airport on Feb. 5.
Lt. Renee Douglas, a spokesperson for the 353rd Special Operations Group, confirmed to Stars and Stripes that the Ospreys belong to the 353rd. Though that unit is based out of Okinawa, Japan, these particular Ospreys were stationed at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo.
Douglas also said the Ospreys in Dang’s photo were there for a fueling stop before continuing on to Thailand for a training exercise.
“The CV-22s conducted a preplanned refueling stop at Danang International Airport for approximately an hour,” Douglas told Stars and Stripes in an email. “They were flying to Thailand to participate in the upcoming Cobra Gold 19 international training exercise.”
Exercise Cobra Gold 2019 — the 38th iteration of the annual Indo-Pacific training exercise that typically involves roughly 4,000 U.S. troops — is set to run from Feb. 12-23. Last year, troops from South Korea joined their Thai and U.S. counterparts in Southeast Asia’s largest multinational military exercise.
Vietnam was put in the spotlight last week after President Donald Trump announced during his State of the Union Address that he will be holding a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi Feb. 27-28.
