At least one passenger died Wednesday after a U. S. military plane crashed off the southern coast of Japan, the Japanese coast guard said, and the condition of the five remaining passengers on board is unknown.
According to Japanese news agency Kyodo, the Japanese Coast Guard was able to rescue a user from a debris site whose death has been confirmed.
The person’s body and debris were found off the southern island of Yakushima.
The Japanese government said there were initially eight other people on board the plane, but later revised that number to six, the Associated Press reported.
The crashed aircraft is a V-22 Osprey that disappeared from the radar at 2:40 p.m. local time and sent out a distress call five minutes later.
The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps operate the V-22 Ospreys, which are tiltrotor aircraft whose propellers can be rotated to take off as a helicopter and then fly as a plane.
Japanese officials said the plane took off from the U. S. Marine Corps base in Yamaguchi province and headed to an air base in Okinawa, the country’s southernmost province.
Wednesday’s twist of fate comes just months after three U. S. Marines were killed when an Osprey with 23 service members on board crashed during training in northern Australia. Last year, the tiltrotor plane was involved in two crashes: one in July in California that resulted in the deaths of five Marines on board, while another crash a few months earlier in Norway killed four Marines. Recent incidents have reinforced negative perceptions about the plane’s safety, particularly its complex design, despite assurances from the military. Last year, the U. S. military also gave its vote of confidence to this exclusive design by opting for the V-280 Valor, another tiltrotor designed by the makers of the Osprey, to update its aging Blackhawk helicopters.
The cause of the crash remains unknown and it is unclear whether the type of aircraft will be temporarily grounded by the U. S. military. U. S. Authorities had grounded the Osprey in February due to a known technical problem.
U.S. Osprey crashes off southwestern Japan island, 1 confirmed dead (Kyodo News)