The Pentagon will lift its ban on flights of the grounded Osprey V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft next week, The Associated Press reported Friday, nearly three months after a deadly accident involving the aircraft off Kagoshima Prefecture.

It was not immediately clear if Japan would follow suit, after the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) also halted all flights of its Ospreys following the Nov. 29 crash into waters near Kagoshima’s Yakushima island that left eight U.S. airmen dead.

The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command, which grounded the controversial aircraft on Dec. 7, will allow military services to begin putting in place their plans to return the Osprey to the skies, the report said, citing unidentified U.S. officials.

The officials said the U.S. military will share its plans with Japan — the sole international partner involved in the Osprey program. The GSDF operates a fleet of 14 MV-22 Block C Ospreys from its Kisarazu base in Chiba Prefecture. It plans to deploy 17 Ospreys to Saga Airport by July 2025, as part of the nation's island defense strategy.

The CV-22 Osprey is the U.S. Special Operation Forces variant of the aircraft, while the MV-22 variant is used by the U.S. Marine Corps and the GSDF.

The incident — the first fatal crash of the Osprey in Japan and the deadliest worldwide since the aircraft entered service in 2007 — has rekindled concerns in Tokyo over the aircraft’s safety, and the U.S. has promised to consult with its key Asian ally before it resumes flights, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said in January.

"Ensuring the safety of Ospreys is a joint top priority for Japan and the United States," Kihara said at the time.

The Osprey has a history of accidents, including a 2016 crash off Nago, Okinawa Prefecture. Last year, aircraft of the type made several emergency landings at Japanese civilian airports.

The head of the Naval Air Systems Command, which will ultimately make the decision to lift the ban, is expected to fly to Japan next week to brief the Defense Ministry and the government on the plans, the AP said. No Ospreys will fly until that briefing has occurred, it reported, citing another U.S. official.

The Pentagon’s decision follows U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s endorsement of the military services’ plans for a safe and measured return to operations, the U.S. officials added.

Asked to confirm the report, a Pentagon spokesman told The Japan Times that the Defense Department did not have any updates to share at this time.

The U.S. Air Force’s Special Operations Command said on Feb. 20 that it had identified the material failure in the November crash, but still does not know why the failure happened. It did not identify what part had failed, but NBC News reported that the crash was linked to chipping from the Osprey's proprotor gearbox that can damage engines.

In the months since the crash, the U.S. military services have worked on plans to mitigate the material failure — which the Pentagon has not officially announced — by beefing up safety checks and establishing “a new, more conservative approach to how the Osprey is operated,” the AP said.