Navy Aircraft With 11 Aboard Crashes Into Waters Off Japan<br />22, 2017<br />TOKYO — A United States Navy aircraft carrying 11 crew<br />and passengers crashed Wednesday southeast of Okinawa, Japan, the fifth accident this year for the Seventh Fleet, the Navy’s largest overseas fleet.<br />Even one mistake in the chain of human work towards safety can lead to an accident." Wednesday’s accident off Okinawa, where half of the roughly 50,000 American military personnel stationed<br />in Japan are based, followed a car crash on Sunday on the island prefecture, in which a United States Marine driving a military truck collided with a Japanese driver, killing him.<br />Based in Yokosuka, Japan, the Seventh Fleet is the Navy’s biggest and busiest overseas fleet, with 20,000 sailors and 50 to 70 vessels.<br />Eight of those aboard were rescued, and American and Japanese naval forces were searching for the other three, the Seventh Fleet said in a statement.<br />The accident comes three months after a United States naval destroyer, the U.S.S.<br />Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier engaged in joint exercises with Japan’s navy in the Philippine Sea, when it crashed, according to the statement.
