The U.S. military has suspended its search-and-rescue mission for three Marines who had gone missing after an Osprey aircraft with 26 passengers on board crashed off the eastern coast of Australia on Saturday.
Both the Marine Corps and the Navy suspended their search-and-rescue operation around 3 a.m. Sunday local time (1 p.m. Saturday Eastern), and will now transition to a recovery effort, the Marines said in a statement.
“The next-of-kin for the three missing Marines have been notified,” the statement from Marine Corps Base Camp Butler in Okinawa, Japan, said.
The military initially reported that a mishap involving the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor occurred around 4 p.m. Saturday local time (2 a.m. Eastern). In a prior press release, the Marines said 23 of the 26 personnel aboard the aircraft had been rescued.
Please keep these families in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time. All other personnel are accounted for and safe.
— III MEF Marines (@IIIMEF) August 6, 2017
The MV-22 Osprey is a vertical take-off and landing aircraft with rotating nacelles that enable it to fly like a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft. It has become a fixture in the U.S. military as a troop transport aircraft.
This particular Osprey had launched from the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard and “was conducting regularly scheduled operations when the aircraft entered the water,” the Marines said. “The ship’s small boats and aircraft immediately responded in the search and rescue efforts.”
President Trump, who is starting his extended August stay in New Jersey this weekend, had been briefed on the matter by chief of staff John Kelly, a White House press pool report said Saturday afternoon.
The latest statement from the Marines said the transition in operations follows a “continuous sustained search.”
“As the sea state permits, recovery efforts will be conducted to further search, assess and survey the area, in coordination and with assistance from the Australian Defence Force,” the statement said. “Recovery and salvage operations can take several months to complete, but can be extended based on several environmental factors.”
The circumstances behind the crash are under investigation, the statement added.
