Navy Aircraft With 11 Aboard Crashes Into Waters Off Japan
22, 2017
TOKYO — A United States Navy aircraft carrying 11 crew
and passengers crashed Wednesday southeast of Okinawa, Japan, the fifth accident this year for the Seventh Fleet, the Navy’s largest overseas fleet.
Even one mistake in the chain of human work towards safety can lead to an accident." Wednesday’s accident off Okinawa, where half of the roughly 50,000 American military personnel stationed
in Japan are based, followed a car crash on Sunday on the island prefecture, in which a United States Marine driving a military truck collided with a Japanese driver, killing him.
Based in Yokosuka, Japan, the Seventh Fleet is the Navy’s biggest and busiest overseas fleet, with 20,000 sailors and 50 to 70 vessels.
Eight of those aboard were rescued, and American and Japanese naval forces were searching for the other three, the Seventh Fleet said in a statement.
The accident comes three months after a United States naval destroyer, the U.S.S.
Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier engaged in joint exercises with Japan’s navy in the Philippine Sea, when it crashed, according to the statement.
