3 marines feared dead after crash

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA— Search and rescue operations were underway for three missing U.S. marines whose Osprey aircraft crashed into the sea off the east coast of Australia on Saturday while trying to land.

Twenty-three of 26 personnel aboard the aircraft have been rescued, a U.S. military statement said. The MV-22 Osprey involved in the crash was conducting regularly scheduled operations when it crashed into the water, the statement said. The ship’s small boats and aircraft immediately responded in the search and rescue efforts.

The Osprey is a tilt-rotor aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter, but flies like an airplane.

The aircraft was in Australia for a joint military training exercise held by the U.S. and Australia last month in Shoalwater Bay.

Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne said Saturday’s incident occurred off the coast of Shoalwater Bay in Queensland state.

Payne said she had spoken with U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis “to offer Australia’s support in any way that can be of assistance.”

In 2015, a U.S. Osprey crashed during a training exercise in Hawaii, killing two marines.

Last December, a U.S. military Osprey crash-landed off Japan’s southern island of Okinawa. Its five crew members were rescued safely. And in January, three U.S. soldiers were wounded in the “hard landing” of an Osprey in Yemen.