The pilot of a US military jet has been safely rescued after his plane crashed off the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.
The Japanese coast guard was alerted and said it had "received a rescue request from Kadena Air Base", adding it had sent a patrol ship and plane to the area.
Wreckage of the plane was found some 95 miles off Okinawa's main island on Thursday.
The US Marine Corps later said in a statement that the pilot on the AV-8 Harrier jet ejected safely and had been rescued by the US Air Force.
They did not say if anyone else was on the plane or if any injuries had been reporting.
The cause of the incident is under investigation.
Seven crew members were last year injured after a US military helicopter with 17 people on board crashed into the sea off Okinawa.
More than half of the 47,000 American troops stationed in Japan under a decades-long security alliance are on Okinawa, the site of a major World War II battle that was followed by a 27-year US occupation.
Their presence at a US airbase on the island has sparked protests among the Japanese, with a series of crimes including rapes, assaults and hit-and-run accidents by military personnel, dependants and civilians leading to increased anger.
The unpopular Futenma airbase is at present situated in a crowded residential district on Okinawa.
Tokyo wants to move it to a more sparsely populated area in its north, but many locals want it moved off the island altogether.
A Japanese court last week approved Tokyo's plan to relocate the base in a move unlikely to immediately resolve the long-running spat between central and local authorities.
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