US military aircraft with eight crew onboard crashes into sea off coast of Japan

A US military plane has crashed into the water near the Southern Japanese coast.

Japan’s coastguard reported on Wednesday that the wreckage of a US Osprey, carrying eight crew members, has been located along with a deployed lifeboat.

The crash site is off the island of Yakushima, which is situated south of the main island of Kyushu. The coastguard reported that it received an emergency call from a fishing boat close to the crash site on Wednesday afternoon.

The plane vanished from radar at 2:40 p.m. local time, according to Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno.

Reports say witnesses claimed to have seen the aircraft’s left engine on fire as it crashed into the sea close to Yakushima airport.

According to a spokesman for US forces stationed there, they were still compiling details regarding the incident.

According to Ministry of Defense, the CV-22 Osprey, which is part of the US Yokota airbase in Tokyo, left the US base at Iwakuni in the Yamaguchi region on Wednesday and was bound for the Kadena base in Okinawa.

The hybrid aircraft has a troubled history, with a string of fatal crashes over the years. It takes off and lands like a helicopter but can rotate its propellers and cruise like an Airplane.

In August, an Osprey plane crashed in Australia, killing three crew members and injuring 20 others. Last June, five Marines on board an Osprey were killed when the plane crashed in the California desert.

In March 2022, four Marines were killed when an Osprey crashed near a Norwegian town in the Arctic Circle during a NATO exercise.

In 2017, three Marines were killed when an Osprey crashed off Australia’s north coast.

Earlier this year the US Army’s chief of staff grounded all pilots not involved in critical missions and required that they complete more training after four helicopters crashed in a matter of weeks with multiple deaths.