Japan suspends Osprey flights after fatal U.S. Air Force crash

TOKYO – Japan will suspend flights of its Osprey military aircraft, officials said Thursday, a day after an Osprey plane belonging to the U.S. Air Force crashed off the Japanese coast, killing at least one crew member. and leaving seven others missing.

Except for the ongoing search and rescue mission, U.S. forces based in Japan have also been asked to suspend all Osprey flights until they “have confirmed the safety of these flight-related aircraft,” the U.S. military said. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, head of the Japanese government. the spokesperson said at a press conference.

Osprey flights by Japanese forces will be suspended “until the circumstances surrounding the crash are clarified,” Matsuno said, adding that search and rescue efforts by Japanese forces continued into the night.

The U.S. Osprey was on a routine training mission Wednesday when it crashed into the ocean near Yakushima, an island about 45 miles south of the Kagoshima region on the southern main island of Kyushu. An unidentified crew member was pronounced dead after being found near the crash site unconscious and not breathing.

The crew member’s body was handed over to U.S. military personnel on Thursday, Japanese officials said.

The causes of the accident and the condition of the other crew members are unknown.

Rahm Emanuel, the US ambassador to Japan, said Thursday that the focus was on search and rescue efforts.

“I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Japanese Coast Guard, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the local community and fishermen who are assisting in the search for the crew,” he said in a statement. publish in X.

In addition to searches by patrol boats and aircraft, the Japanese Coast Guard is searching underwater for missing crew members using a device called “side-scan sonar” that is towed by a patrol boat and captures images of the ocean floor. , where the plane could have gone down.

“There are currently no new leads,” the Coast Guard’s 10th regional headquarters in Kagoshima prefecture said in a statement Thursday.

The CV-22B Osprey is based in Yokota Air Base and assigned to the 353rd Special Operations Wingaccording to the Air Force Special Operations Command.

The Osprey is an American hybrid aircraft that takes off, lands and hovers like a helicopter, but during flight can rotate its propellers to reach a much higher speed during flight like a conventional aircraft.

The planes have been involved in a number of accidents in recent years, including in Japan, where they are used on Japanese and US military bases, raising safety concerns. In August, an Osprey with 23 U.S. Marines on board crashed in Australia during a routine training exercise, killing the pilot and two others.

Japan became the first foreign country to own and operate the aircraft in 2020.

After the US Osprey crash was reported on Wednesday afternoon, the Japanese Coast Guard immediately deployed patrol vessels and aircraft to the scene. Rescuers found “wreck-like debris” and an overturned life raft, the coast guard said, but no people were inside.

Arata Yamamoto reported from Tokyo and Mithil Aggarwal reported from Hong Kong.