Japan suspends its own Osprey flights after deadly US crash, asks US military ground aircraft following latest accident
- Tokyo’s decision to ground the aircraft follows a crash involving a US Osprey on Wednesday off Japan’s southern coast, that killed at least 1 of 8 crew members
- The cause of the crash and status of the 7 others on board were not immediately known
A senior Defense Ministry official, Taro Yamato, told a parliamentary hearing that Japan plans to suspend flights of Ospreys for the time being. Ministry officials said a planned training flight Thursday at the Metabaru army camp in the Saga prefecture in southern Japan was cancelled as part of a plan to ground all 14 Japanese-owned Ospreys deployed at Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force bases.
The US Osprey crashed on Wednesday off Japan’s southern coast, killing at least one of the eight crew members. The cause of the crash and the status of the seven others on board were not immediately known.
The coastguard, as well as Japanese troops searched through the night, and on Thursday, the coastguard started using sonar to search underwater for the broken aircraft that might have sunk to the sea bottom.
The Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but can rotate its propellers forward and cruise much faster like an aeroplane during flight.
Ospreys have had a number of crashes, including in Japan, where they are used at US and Japanese military bases. In Okinawa, where about half of the 50,000 American troops are based, Governor Denny Tamaki had said he would ask the US military to suspend all Osprey flights in Japan.