Japan’s armed forces have recovered part of the wreckage of the military helicopter that disappeared last week with 10 people on board and five bodies during underwater searches, a ground military spokesman said today.

The helicopter was on a reconnaissance mission when it disappeared from radar on April 6. The Japanese military called it an “air crash.”

The UH-60JA was carrying two pilots, two engineers and six other military personnel, including a general.

The army spokesman said the bodies have not yet been identified, but the piece found appears to be indeed from the missing helicopter.

“There are five remaining that have not been found, so search operations are continuing,” he added.

The Japanese coast guard had already found debris that appeared to be from the helicopter, notably a door, propeller section and a lifeboat still wrapped in its bag, in searches near Miyako Island in Okinawa Prefecture.

No assessment of the cause of the accident has been made public so far by the authorities.

In recent years, Japan has seen a spate of air accidents involving military aircraft, most notably the January 2022 crash into the sea in the central part of the country of an F-15 fighter jet that killed its two pilots.

In 2019, an F-35A fighter also crashed into the sea in the northeastern part of the archipelago. Searches to find the pilot’s body and the aircraft’s carcass, which is full of technological secrets, were eventually abandoned.

The Ministry of Defense later assessed that the pilot who was lost in the crash may have suffered disorientation.