Japanese and U.S. government officials met Thursday in Tokyo to discuss Monday's fatal crash of a U.S. Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter at a marine camp in Okinawa that forced the grounding of other choppers of the same type, and to look for ways to prevent further accidents.
The crash on a mountain within U.S. Marine Corps Camp Hansen is believed to have claimed the life of one of the four crew members aboard the aircraft. The other three survived with injuries, earlier reports said.
The U.S. delegation in Thursday's discussions was led by Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, while Koji Tomita, head of the Foreign Ministry's North American Affairs Bureau, and Hideshi Tokuchi, director general of the Defense Ministry's Policy Bureau, represented the Japanese side.