A U.S. army plane crashed close to a small island off the coast of southern Japan on Wednesday with six individuals onboard. Japan’s Coast Guard stated that at the least a type of onboard had been confirmed lifeless.
The plane, a CV-22 Osprey operated by the U.S. Air Drive, crashed shut to three p.m. close to Yakushima, based on a spokesman for the Japanese Coast Guard, which is conducting a rescue operation. It was initially thought that eight individuals have been aboard the craft.
The crash got here simply three months after three U.S. Marines died in one other Osprey accident throughout a coaching train in Australia.
In keeping with Hiroyuki Miyazawa, Japan’s deputy protection minister, the Osprey made an “emergency water touchdown.” Round 2:40 p.m. on Wednesday, the prefectural police in Kagoshima, the place Yakushima is positioned, acquired a report that the Osprey, with certainly one of its engines burning, had crashed close to the Yakushima airport, based on Hiroki Shimano, an official in Kagoshima Prefecture’s disaster administration division.
The plane had misplaced radar contact earlier than the crash, Hirokazu Matsuno, chief cupboard secretary to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, stated in a information briefing.
Round 5:20 p.m. on Wednesday, Japan’s Coast Guard stated {that a} rescue crew had discovered one member of the Osprey’s crew, and that the individual was “unconscious and never respiratory.” That individual was later confirmed lifeless.
The Osprey, which is manufactured by Boeing and Bell Textron, each American aerospace corporations, is a singular plane that may take off and land vertically. The CV-22s, that are operated primarily by the Air Drive, have been stationed at Yokota Air Base in Japan since 2018.
Itsunori Onodera, a former protection minister and present lawmaker, posted on X, previously Twitter, that the crash was “a worrying matter.”
“We now have requested the Ministry of Protection and the Japan Coast Guard to do their greatest to rescue the plane,” he wrote, including, “To begin with, we should rescue the crew and request protected flight. I hope the crew can be rescued quickly.”