A Japan Ground-Self Defense Force UH-60JA Black Hawk similar to this one crashed into the East China Sea near Miyako Island, April 6, 2023, while conducting surveillance. (JGSDF)

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Japan’s army has identified another two officers whose remains were recovered from the wreckage of a military helicopter that crashed into the East China Sea earlier this month with 10 aboard, including a division commander.

Maj. Akira Yamai, 47, and 2nd Lt. Keisuke Uchima, 27, both from the 8th Air Wing at Vice-Camp Takayubaru in Kumamoto prefecture, were among the five bodies recovered from the UH-60JA Black Hawk since April 16, a Japan Ministry of Defense statement said Tuesday.

Five of the six bodies found in a section of the fuselage have been recovered and identified. One body remains with the aircraft section found April 13 in 350 feet of water just offshore of Irabu Island, southwest of Okinawa. Four people aboard the Black Hawk are unaccounted for.

Yamai and Uchima were piloting the aircraft when it crashed April 6 shortly after departing Miyako Airport, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported Tuesday. A Ground Self-Defense Force spokeswoman on Thursday declined to confirm those details.

The Black Hawk was on a reconnaissance flight 11 miles northwest of Miyako Airport when it went down with Lt. Gen. Yuichi Sakamoto, commander of the Ground Self-Defense Force’s 8th Division, four members of the division’s headquarters staff, four members of the wing and Camp Miyako commander Col. Masahito Iyota aboard.

Sakamoto, 55, was appointed division commander less than a week before the crash. His body was identified on April 21, the same day Japan’s coast guard suspended around-the-clock search efforts.

The Self-Defense Force continued the search this week and navy divers are headed back to the wreck site, the spokeswoman said.

Offshore Engineering Co. of Tokyo has been hired to raise the aircraft section from the seabed, a Ground Self-Defense Force spokesman said Tuesday. Work could begin as soon as Saturday.