American and Japanese teams looking for things found five dead people in the remains of a US military plane that crashed near Yakushima island last week.
The CV-22 Osprey plane crashed last week while carrying eight people. Only one had been found before.
Two out of the five bodies that were found on Monday have been brought back.
The accident made Tokyo request that the US stop flying its Osprey planes in Japan.
During the accident, the Osprey was flying from a US Marine Corps air base in Yamaguchi Prefecture to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa for training.
It asked to land on Yukushima island right away before crashing into the water.
People who saw it happen said that the plane turned upside down and caught on fire before it crashed. We still don’t know why the incident happened.
On Monday, the US Air Force Special Operations Command announced that the US and Japanese teams searching for the aircraft made a big discovery. They found some parts of the plane and the main body of the wreckage with help from ships and dive teams.
Efforts to rescue the rest of the crew from the crash site are still going on, the statement said. They haven’t been found yet.
The first victim’s body was found a few hours after the crash.
The Air Force called him Staff Sgt Jake Galliher. He’s 24 years old and from Massachusetts. He was in an intelligence unit at Yokota Air Base in Japan.
Osprey was made in 2007. It works as a helicopter and a plane with a propeller.
The US military’s Ospreys have been in a few other serious crashes lately.
In August, another type of Osprey aircraft crashed during a military training in Australia. It resulted in the deaths of three US Marines and injuries to 20 other people.
Last year, a crash in the California desert involving an Osprey killed five Marines.
Japan, which is the only other country with Osprey aircraft, stopped using their fleet for a short time last week.
It also requested the United States to stop flying the 30 Osprey aircraft stationed in Japan until they could be inspected to make sure they are safe.
The Pentagon told the BBC that the aircraft’s unit is not flying right now. They are making sure it’s safe for all flights and operations.
Japan and the United States have an agreement about their military. Japan won’t be very involved in the investigation of the crash.
This made Japan very angry because the US did not follow this rule and did not stop its airplanes from flying.
Sabrina Singh, the assistant to the person in charge at the Pentagon, said that the US has already begun giving details about the accident to our partners in Japan. “We talk a lot with our leaders about airplane safety and other safety issues. “
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Five corpses discovered in US military aircraft wreckage close to Japan
