Search underway off Japan for missing Marines

One rescued in mishap between two aircraft in training exercise

U.S. Marines and Japanese authorities were searching about 200 miles off the coast of Japan for six Marines after a mishap involving a fighter jet and a plane used for refueling and troop transportation, Marine officials said early Thursday.

One Marine was rescued, officials said in a statement.

The incident occurred after the planes took off from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan, officials said. The aircraft -- an F/A-18 Hornet and a KC-130 Hercules -- were conducting “regularly scheduled training” at the time, and Japanese authorities immediately launched searchand-rescue aircraft.

“The circumstances of the mishap are currently under investigation,” the statement said.

It was not clear immediately clear if the aircraft collided, or if the KC-130 was in the process of refueling the Hornet when the incident occurred. Aerial refueling with the KC-130 calls for another aircraft to pull slightly below and behind the tanker plane, with hoses eventually extended from the tanker plane. The K-130 can carry 3,600-gallon stainless steel refueling tanks on its wings or inside the fuselage, or share fuel from its own fuel tanks.

The KC-130 also can be used to transport ground troops. In July 2017, a KC-130T crashed in Mississippi while flying from Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York to Naval Air Facility El Centro in California, killing all 16 Marines aboard.

The Marine Corps announced Wednesday night that an investigation into the crash in Mississippi found that an “inflight departure” of one of the plane’s propellers from a wing.