Six U.S. Marines were missing following a still-unexplained mishap off the coast of Japan on Thursday involving two U.S. Marine Corps aircraft, which may have collided mid-air during a refuelling exercise gone wrong, U.S. officials said.
The Marine Corps said in a statement that the incident occurred around 2 a.m. local time in Japan on Thursday (1700 GMT Wednesday) about 200 miles (322 km) off the Japanese coast.
Japan’s defence ministry said that its maritime forces had so far rescued one of the seven Marines who were aboard the two aircraft at the time of the incident. Search and rescue efforts were ongoing, U.S. and Japanese officials said.
The rescued person had been on the F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet and was in a stable condition at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya told a news conference.