TOKYO: A US Osprey military aircraft crashed on Wednesday off a Japanese island, killing one crew member and leaving five unaccounted for, the coastguard said, in the latest incident involving the tilt-rotor military aircraft.

One unconscious person had been found in the sea near the scene of the crash off the island of Yakushima but was later “confirmed dead in hospital”, the coastguard said in a statement. It also revised downwards an earlier statement to say that six crew had been on board instead of eight.