Japan has suspended its own Osprey flights after a US Air Force Osprey based in Japan crashed into the sea during a training mission, officials said, Report informs referring to AP.
Tokyo has also asked the US military to stop all Ospreys operating in Japan except for those searching for victims of the crash.
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 canceled as part of a plan to ground all 14 Japanese-owned Ospreys deployed at Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force bases.
Japan also asked the US military to ground all Osprey flights except for the purpose of joining the ongoing search and rescue operations at the crash site until “their safety is confirmed,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokzu Matsuno told reporters. One US Osprey joined the rescue operation since the crash, Japanese defense officials said.
The US Osprey crashed 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 coast guard, as well as Japanese troops searched through the night, and on Thursday, the coast guard 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 airplane during flight.