Navy plane crashes into waters off Japan’s coast

TOKYO — A U.S. Navy aircraft carrying 11 crew and passengers crashed Wednesday southeast of Okinawa, Japan, the fifth accident this year for the 7th Fleet, the Navy’s largest overseas fleet.

Eight of those aboard were rescued, and American and Japanese naval forces were searching for the other three, the 7th Fleet said in a statement.

The aircraft, a C2-A Greyhound propeller cargo plane, was on its way to the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier engaged in joint exercises with Japan’s navy in the Philippine Sea, when it crashed, the statement said. The plane had been making a routine transport flight from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, the statement said.

The eight personnel rescued were undergoing medical evaluation on the Ronald Reagan and were in good condition, the statement said. It said the crash would be investigated.

Speaking to reporters, Itsunori Onodera, Japan’s defense minister, said a U.S. source had indicated the aircraft might have had engine trouble.

The accident comes three months after a U.S. naval destroyer, the USS McCain, collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore, leaving 10 dead. That episode came just two months after a fatal collision between another naval destroyer, the Fitzgerald, and a Philippine merchant vessel off the coast of Japan. Seven people on the Fitzgerald were killed.

The Navy relieved Vice Adm. Joseph P. Aucoin, the head of the 7th Fleet, of his command in August. In reports released this month, the Navy’s top admiral said the two destroyer crashes were “avoidable” and had resulted from a string of crew and basic navigational errors.