A US military plane with eight crew members on board crashed off the coast of Yakushima, southwestern Japan, on Wednesday, Japanese authorities said.
The Coast Guard was notified at 2:47 PM (6:47 AM in Lisbon) about the incident involving the plane, which took place off the Japanese province of Kagoshima.
The health status of the eight crew members is not yet known.
The plane had taken off from the U.S. Iwakuni base in Yamaguchi Prefecture and was headed to the Kadena base in the Okinawa archipelago, where most of the U.S. military installations in Japan are located.
The device, a Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey, can perform the functions of a helicopter and an aircraft and was manufactured by the North American aircraft manufacturer Boeing and the helicopter specialist Bell.
The Osprey has long been the subject of debate due to a series of fatal accidents involving this type of aircraft, the most recent of which occurred in late August, killing three US Marines in northern Australia.
Source: DN
