The coastguard reported that a US Osprey military aircraft, carrying eight crew members, crashed off a Japanese island on Wednesday, marking the most recent incident involving this tilt-rotor military aircraft.
Survivors’ status remained shrouded in uncertainty, though the coastguard disclosed finding an unconscious individual on-site, promptly ferrying them to a port in close proximity.
The coastguard relayed that an unconscious person was found in the sea, and efforts for resuscitation were actively taking place.
Reports from local media mentioned that the coastguard had identified wreckage near the location of the crash.
‘We received information at 2:47 pm (0547 GMT) today that the US military’s Osprey crashed off Yakushima Island,’ a spokeswoman for the coastguard told AFP.
‘We were also notified that there were eight crew members on board,’ she added.
An emergency management official in the Kagoshima region told AFP that ‘police received a report that an Osprey was spewing fire from a left engine and was landing at a beach near Yakushima Airport’.
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The coastguard has deployed patrol ships and aircraft in the vicinity of Yakushima, positioned to the south of Japan’s southernmost main island of Kyushu.
According to NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, the Osprey was in transit from the Iwakuni US base near Hiroshima in the Yamaguchi region, with its destination set for the Kadena base further south in Okinawa.
NHK, with information from defense ministry sources, reported that the aircraft in question was positively identified as a CV-22 Osprey from the US Yokota air base in Tokyo.
While acknowledging the situation, government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno confirmed that Japan had information about the US military’s Osprey falling out of radar contact near Yakushima Island.
‘The government is confirming the extent of damage and will prioritise saving human lives,’ Matsuno told reporters.
Immediate comments were not provided by the US embassy in Japan. The US military, maintaining a presence of about 54,000 personnel in Japan, confirmed this information.