A US military aircraft with eight personnel on board has crashed into the sea near Japan’s Yakushima island, the Japanese coastguard said.
The crash involved an Osprey aircraft, that can function as a helicopter and a turboprop craft, and happened at about 2.47pm local time on Wednesday, according to a spokesperson for the coastguard.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the aircraft disappeared from radar at 2.40pm local time.
The coastguard spokesperson, Kazuo Ogawa, said the coastguard has deployed aircraft and patrol boats to the crash site. He said no further details can be confirmed yet, including the safety of those on board.
An emergency call was received from a fishing boat near the crash site off Yakushima, an island south of Kagoshima, said Mr Ogawa.
Local residents said the aircraft’s left engine was on fire when it fell into the sea, reported Japanese broadcaster MBC.
The US military in Japan said they are still gathering information on the incident. It is not yet clear which US base the Osprey belonged to.
The aircraft is believed to have been heading from Iwakuni to Okinawa.
First launched in 1989, the Osprey aircraft has a unique tiltrotor design that allows it to perform vertical take-offs and landings like a helicopter, before turning its rotors and achieving similar cruising speeds to a traditional turboprop plane.
Bell Boeing, which manufactures the Osprey, said the aircraft is built with corrosion-resistant materials and remains the most suitable for a maritime environment.
The aircraft are used for a wide range of mission types that include air assaults, air refuelling, evacuation and recovery, and transporting VIPs.
A number of crashes involving the aircraft have been reported in recent years.
In August this year, three of 20 US marines were killed in Australia’s Melville Island while taking part in a military drill with the armies of Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor.
Last year, four US soldiers were killed in a crash in a Norwegian town during a Nato exercise unrelated to the Ukraine war. The aircraft involved was a V-22B Osprey that belonged to the US Marine Corps, Norway’s armed forces said.
In a 2017 crash, an Osprey struck a warship in an incident that killed three marines on board. New footage of the incident emerged last year.
There have been at least five fatal crashes of Marine Ospreys since 2012, causing a total of at least 19 deaths, reported the Associated Press.
Critics have said the hybrid aircraft is prone to accidents, while the US military and Japan have maintained it is safe.