TOKYO: The US military has recovered the remains of the seventh of eight crew members who was on board of the Osprey transport aircraft that crashed in the waters off southwestern Japan late last month, local media reported on Monday.
The remains recovered on Sunday was that one of the two crew members still missing, Xinhua news agency reported citing Japanese public broadcaster NHK as saying.
Navy divers are still trying to find the last missing airman,NHK said, citing a US Air Force Special Operations Command's statement.
The Air Force CV-22 Osprey went down on November 29 in waters off Japan's southwestern island of Yakushima while carrying out routine training, killing all the eight US airmen aboard.
The US military said last week that it is grounding its entire fleet of V-22 Osprey aircraft following the fatal crash in Japan after a preliminary investigation indicated something went wrong with the aircraft that was not a human error.
Variants of the V-22 Osprey are used by several services, the MV-22 by the Marines, CV-22 by the Air Force, and CMV-22 by the Navy, with some 400, 51 and 27 Ospreys respectively, according to US media.