Japan asks US military to ground Osprey aircraft

TOKYO — Japan said it has asked the United States to suspend all nonemergency V-22 Osprey flights over its territory after one fell into the sea on Wednesday in western Japan, marking the country's first fatal US military plane crash in five years.

The US Air Force said the cause of the mishap during a routine training mission, which killed at least one person, was not currently known. Search and rescue operations to find the remaining seven crew members were still ongoing. The crew number had initially been put at eight before being revised down to six and then back to eight.

"The occurrence of such an accident causes great anxiety to the people of the region … and we are requesting the US side to conduct flights of Ospreys deployed in Japan after these flights are confirmed to be safe," Japan's Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said in parliament on Thursday.

Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force, which has a V-22 Osprey fleet, will suspend its own Osprey flights for the time being, senior defense ministry official Taro Yamato told the parliamentary hearing.

A spokesperson for the US military forces in Japan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Our focus is on the ongoing search and rescue operations, and we're praying for a safe return," Rahm Emanuel, the US ambassador to Japan, said in a post on X.

Witnesses said the aircraft's left engine appeared to be on fire as it approached an airport for an emergency landing in clear weather and light winds, media reported.

Developed by Boeing and Bell Helicopter, the hybrid V-22, which can land and take off like a helicopter and fly like a fixed-wing aircraft, is operated by the US Air Force, Marines and Navy, and Japan's Self-Defense Forces.

The deployment of the aircraft in Japan has been controversial, with critics of US military presence in Japan's southwestern islands saying it is prone to accidents. But the US and Japan say it is safe.

Japan hosts the biggest overseas concentration of US military presence, with the country home to the only forward-deployed US carrier strike group, its Asian airlift hub, fighter squadrons and a US Marine Corps expeditionary force.

In August, a US Osprey crashed off the coast of northern Australia while transporting troops during a routine military exercise, killing three US Marines.

Another Osprey crashed into the ocean off the southern island of Okinawa in December 2016. The last fatal US military aircraft crash in Japan was in 2018, when a midair collision during a training exercise killed six people, Reuters reported.

Agencies - Xinhua