A spokesperson for the Japan shore Guard said that eight people were on board when a US military Osprey aircraft crashed off the shore of Yakushima Island in the southern Kagoshima prefecture on Wednesday.
An aeroplane and patrol boat from the 10th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters have been sent to the crash site, according to the spokeswoman, who stated that the Coast Guard received information about the incident at approximately 12:47 a.m. ET on April 27.
A representative stated that details regarding any injuries are not available at this time.
The Osprey military aircraft has been involved in other fatal crashes throughout the years; this one is the most recent.
This August, during military drills in Australia, an Osprey crashed, killing three US Marines and critically wounding numerous more.
Five US Marines lost their lives in 2022 when their MV-22B Osprey aircraft crashed when they were on a training mission close to Glamis, California. During NATO training operations in Norway that same year, an Osprey aircraft carrying four US service men went down and killed them.
The Osprey is a very adaptable aircraft that can cruise at high speed like a typical turboprop plane with wings and take off vertically like a helicopter.
Although Ospreys are generally safe to fly, since the aircraft’s introduction in the 1980s, there have been technical and operational problems, according to CNN military expert and retired US Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton