An Osprey, a hybrid aircraft of horizontal and vertical landing-takeoff, of the American armed forces, crashed today in the sea, off southern Japan, with 8 people on board, the Japanese coast guard announced.

“Today we received information at 14:47 (07:47 Greek time), according to which an Osprey of the American armed forces crashed near the island of Yakushima,” a Japanese coast guard spokesman said when asked by AFP.

“His team consisted of 8 people,” the spokeswoman added.

According to Japanese public broadcaster NHKthat aircraft had departed from the US Air Force Base at Iwakuni, near Hiroshima, in western Japan, to go to another US military base in Okinawa, on the southwestern tip of the Japanese archipelago.

The Osprey, a collaboration between the American aircraft manufacturer Boeing and the helicopter specialist Bell, has been the subject of discussion for a long time due to several accidents that have occurred with this aircraft.

At the end of August, three US Marines had been killed in an Osprey crash in northern Australia.