A Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey with four crew members on board crashed during a training exercise in Norway, according to the Norwegian military.
The Osprey was reported missing at 6:26 p.m. Central European Time, roughly 30 minutes after it was scheduled to land, Reuters reported.
“The Osprey was heading north in Nordland on its way to Bodø, where it was scheduled to land just before 6 pm,” a statement from the Norwegian military said. “The aircraft’s last known position was on Saltfjellet.
“We’ve discovered an aircraft that has crashed,” Nordland police chief of staff Bent Eilertsen told Reuters. “We’ve seen no sign of life.”
Bodø, located north of the Arctic Circle, was experiencing rain, heavy cloud cover and strong winds with gusts as high as 52 miles per hour, according to AccuWeather.com.
“The weather conditions in the area are challenging, and it is expected to get worse,” the Norwegian statement said.
An initial U.S. Marine Corps statement confirmed the crash, but did not say whether any service members were missing or injured, nor did it release the name of the unit the Osprey was a part of.
Roughly 3,000 Marines from the II Marine Expeditionary Force, headquartered in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, are in Norway as part of Cold Response, a large biannual NATO training exercise.
Images posted Wednesday via the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service show Marine Ospreys with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, operating out of Norwegian Air Force Base Bodø, Norway.
When not deployed, the squadron is based out of Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina.
Norwegian search and rescue teams were searching for the downed Osprey for nearly two hours when it picked up the vehicle’s emergency beacon, Reuters reported.
“We found it after an emergency signal was received,” a Norwegian official with the nation’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centres, told Reuters.
“Because of the bad weather, we cannot get down. Police and rescue services are on their way” by land, the official added.
The Marine Corps is currently conducting an investigation into the cause of the accident, according to a tweet from the official Marine Corps account.
Three Marines were killed in 2017 when their MV-22B Osprey crashed off Queensland, Australia.
In 2015 one Marine was killed and 21 were injured when a Marine Osprey caught fire after a “hard landing” in Hawaii.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
