North American military plane with eight passengers crashes near the Japanese island of Yakushima – Observer

A US armed forces aircraft crashed this Wednesday with eight crew members on board off the coast of Yakushima, in southwestern Japan, Japanese authorities reported.

The Coast Guard received the alert at 2:47 pm (6:47 am in Lisbon) about the aircraft incident, which occurred off the Japanese prefecture of Kagoshima. The health status of the eight crew members is not yet known.

The aircraft had taken off from the US base of Iwakuni, in Yamaguchi prefecture, and was heading to the Kadena base, in the Okinawa archipelago, where most of the US military installations in Japan are located.

The device, um Bell-Boeing V-22 Ospreyis capable of performing the functions of a helicopter and an airplane, 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 deadly accidents involving this type of aircraft, with the most recent occurring in late August in which three US Marines died in northern Australia.

In update.