An ambulance helicopter carrying six people went missing off Tsushima Island at about 14:50 local time on April 6, 2025. By the time a coast guard boat found it, it was floating upside down. Three of those aboard were dead.
The aircraft was a Eurocopter EC-135, registered JA555H and operated for medical evacuations by SGC Saga Aviation. It had left Tsushima Airport at 13:30 with one patient, an elderly woman in her 80s, bound for a hospital in Fukuoka city. The scheduled arrival was 14:15. With the patient were her caretaker, a pilot, a mechanic, a doctor and a nurse.
The Japan Coast Guard confirmed that the patient, the doctor and the caretaker died. The other three suffered hypothermia and survived.
The search
The 7th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters sent two aircraft and three ships. A patrol boat spotted the capsized helicopter shortly after 17:00, about 27 kilometers northeast of Iki Island, part of Nagasaki Prefecture. Photos that local media posted on X showed three people standing on the wreck as it sank. Authorities worked to keep it from going under while they looked into the cause.
Kyodo News reported that investigators suspect the crew was trying to make an emergency landing on the water when the helicopter went down.
Earlier crash
The same private company was tied to a crash in Fukuoka Prefecture in July 2024 that killed two people. Kyodo said the helicopter was grounded for safety inspections afterward. An inspection on April 4, 2025, two days before this flight, found no problems with the aircraft.
