All 9 Aboard Crashed Japan Helicopter Confirmed Dead

August 12, 2018

Nakanojo, Gunma Pref.- All nine crew members of a disaster response helicopter that crashed into a mountain in Nakanojo in the eastern Japan prefecture of Gunma on Friday have been confirmed dead, the prefectural government said Saturday.

Of the nine, the captain and a member of the prefectural disaster response aviation team have been identified, according to the Gunma prefectural police department.

The police are accelerating efforts to identify the remaining seven and determine the causes of their deaths. They are also trying to figure out how the accident occurred.

The helicopter, Haruna, is believed to have crashed shortly after 10 a.m. on Friday (1 a.m. GMT). The debris of the aircraft have been found near Mount Yokote, which straddles the prefectural border between Gunma and Nagano.

On Friday, eight of the nine crew members were found, with two confirmed dead. Self-Defense Forces troops, police officers and firefighters resumed their search operations early Saturday morning and found the last missing crew member near the crash site.

A total of seven people were carried to the Ground SDF's Camp Somagahara in the village of Shinto in Gunma, by helicopter. All of them were confirmed dead by around 11:40 a.m. on Saturday.

Aboard Haruna were four members of the disaster response aviation team, including the captain and a mechanic who both belonged to Tokyo-based Toho Air Service Co., and five firefighters belonging to a station in the Agatsuma region in Gunma. Toho Air Service was commissioned to operate and maintain Haruna.

The chopper took off from a heliport in Maebashi, the capital of Gunma, around 9:15 a.m. on Friday to inspect a 100-kilometer ridge line trail ahead of its full opening.

The aircraft, which was scheduled to return at 10:45 a.m., went missing after being seen flying near Mount Yokote shortly past 10 a.m. Jiji Press