Divers recover the seventh of 8 crew members killed in crash of a US military Osprey off Japan

Divers retrieved the bodies of the seventh of eight crew members from a U.S. military Osprey aircraft that crashed off the coast of southern Japan during a training mission on Sunday. The Air Force CV-22 Osprey crashed Nov. 29 off the coast of Yakushima Island in southern Japan on its way to Okinawa. Six of the crew members’ bodies have since been found, including five from the sunken wreckage of the aeroplane. The body discovered by Air Force divers was one of the two crew members still missing, according to the US Air Force Special Operations Command. The airman’s identity had been confirmed, but the information was being suppressed until next of kin could be notified, according to the command. “Currently there is a combined effort in locating and recovering the remains of our eighth airman,” it said. A week after the crash and repeated reminders from the Japanese government about safety concerns, the U.S. military grounded all its Osprey V-22 aircraft after a preliminary investigation indicated something went wrong with the craft that was not a human error. The U.S.-made Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but can rotate its propellers forward and cruise much faster, like an airplane, during flight. The crash raised new questions about the safety of the Osprey, which has been involved in multiple fatal accidents over its relatively short time in service. Japan grounded its fleet of 14 Ospreys after the crash. Japanese defense officials say Ospreys are key to the country’s military buildup especially in southwestern Japan, in the face of a growing threat from China. But the crash has rekindled worries and public protests in areas where additional Osprey deployment is planned. Japanese residents and media have criticized Japan’s government for not pushing hard enough to get Ospreys grounded sooner or gain access to information about the crash.