Tragedy struck over the coast of Japan as an Osprey aircraft carrying eight people plummeted into the ocean depths during a training mission. Among those on board was a Massachusetts native, Air Force member Jacob "Jake" Galliher, whose life was claimed. The Pittsfield Police Department confirmed the news of Galliher's passing, as reported by Boston 25 News.
The Pittsfield native, remembered for his 2017 graduation from Taconic Vocational High School, was missed dearly by his wife, Ivy, and his two boys—aged two and an infant of six weeks. "To Jacob's family and, friends our community is mourning with you," expressed the Pittsfield Police Department, as conveyed in a WWLP report.
The Osprey V-22 was undone. Pieces of the wreckage were fished out by a local vessel near Yakushima as per the Japanese Coast Guard's findings. Yet seven crew members remain unaccounted for, their fates as nebulous as the ocean's depths.
Tomorrow brought an uneasy pause; flights of Japan's Osprey fleet stood still after the crash, but the Pentagon asserted that U.S. operations in Japan would continue unflinchingly. The crash's motives, buried in layers of seawater and speculation, are still to be diligently examined. Crews are persevering to locate the others. This aircraft, taking its final voyage from U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni to Kadena Air Base, signaled danger moments before disappearing from radar, a grim narrative supplied by Japanese officials and reported by WWLP.
The cause of Wednesday’s crash is still under investigation.
