Another helicopter crash gripped Japan’s military less than six months after a similar tragic incident involving the Osprey aircraft killed eight airmen off the coast of Yakushima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture.
Two Mitsubishi SH-60K helicopters from the Maritime Self-Defense Force were conducting drills on how to counter submarines at night when both aircraft crashed off the Izu Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Each of the navy helicopters carried four crew members on board during the incident.
One crew member has been rescued but later died from his injuries.
Japan’s US allies offered assistance with the search and rescue operation as seven other crew members remained unaccounted for.
Authorities recovered debris believed to be aircraft parts coming from the ill-fated helicopters.
The incident this past weekend happened after the U.S. Air Force CV-22 Osprey crashed on the island of Yakushima in southwestern Japan in November 2023, killing all eight U.S. crew members.
The tragic crash forced the U.S. military to suspend the entire fleet after their counterparts in Japan requested them to do so.
Japanese citizens held a rally after the CV-22 Osprey resumed operations in March 2024 as they expressed grave concern for the aircraft’s troubled history of multiple crashes that killed several airmen in recent years.
The Defense Ministry has retrieved the flight recorders from the ill-fated SH-60K helicopters to analyze the cause of the incident, including the possibility that the two navy helicopters collided with each other which could have led to the tragic crash.
