It was an epic trip for the innovative tilt-rotor plane, one that took more than 25 years of development and cost 30 lives and $20 billion. Even the last short hop -- from an aircraft carrier into Iraq -- went awry, U.S. military officials said Monday.

A malfunction forced one of the 10 deployed Ospreys to land in Jordan on Thursday. The Marines flew parts to it from Iraq and repaired it. After it took off again Saturday, the problem recurred, and the Osprey had to turn back and land in Jordan a second time, said Maj. Jeff Pool, a U.S. military spokesman in western Iraq. It was finally repaired and arrived at al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq late Sunday afternoon.

Maj. Eric Dent, an Osprey spokesman at Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, declined to identify the problem. "The nature of the malfunction was a minor issue, but our aircrews are top-notch when it comes to safety," he wrote by e-mail. "Rather than continue, the aircrew opted to land at a pre-determined divert location and further investigate the issue."

Now that the Osprey is on the world stage, the burden of proving that it's safe, reliable and effective in combat is on Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263, nicknamed the Thunder Chickens. The unit, based at North Carolina's Marine Corps Air Station New River, will be transporting troops and cargo in western Iraq.

It will perform that mission in ways that no other military transporters have ever done in combat. The Osprey -- which costs $110 million each, including development costs -- takes off and lands like a helicopter but tilts its engines forward to fly like an airplane.

Its arrival in Iraq is aviation history, said Bob Leder, a spokesman for the Bell-Boeing partnership that builds the Osprey.

"This is a big thing -- the introduction of a new type of aircraft into combat, totally different from the way things have been done before," he said.

Leder said the company thinks the Osprey and the squadron will do well but that the years of criticism and heavy media attention are putting huge pressure on the squadron to perform.

The aircraft's problems have generated a gallery of vocal detractors, who say that not only is it too expensive and too dangerous, but that it performs poorly and has become little more than an extraordinarily expensive bus.

The problem with the flight into Iraq recalled one of the V-22's first big journeys, a trans-Atlantic flight last year to an English air show. One Osprey suffered engine problems and had to make a precautionary landing in Iceland.

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