A US Osprey military aircraft with eight crew on board crashed on Wednesday off the coast of Japan, the coastguard said.

“We received information at 2:47 pm (0547 GMT) today that the US military’s Osprey crashed off Yakushima Island,” a spokeswoman told AFP.

“We were also notified that there were eight crew members on board,” she added. “There is no further information at the moment.”

The island of Yakushima lies south of Japan’s southernmost main island Kyushu.

Japanese broadcaster NHK reported that the Osprey departed from the Iwakuni US base in the Yamaguchi region headed for the Kadena base in Okinawa.

NHK also cited defence ministry sources as saying that the aircraft was a CV-22 Osprey belonging to the US Yokota air base in Tokyo.

The tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft has a troubled history, with a string of fatal crashes over the years.

In August, a crash in northern Australia killed three US marines among the 23 on board.

The Boeing MV-22B Osprey crashed on Melville Island, north of Darwin during a military exercise for locally based troops.

Eight other US Marines needed hospital treatment including one of them in intensive care.

AFP.