OSLO, March 19, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - A US military aircraft with four crew on
board is thought to have crashed in Norway while taking part in NATO
exercises, Norwegian emergency services said on Friday.

  The US Osprey aircraft "was reported missing at 18:26 (1726 GMT) south of
Bodo" in northern Norway in bad weather, the regional emergency services
(HRS) said in a statement.

  The four-person crew were taking part in the Cold Response military
exercises involving 30,000 people from NATO and partner countries.

  The US Marine Corps confirmed "a mishap" involving a MV-22B Osprey during
the exercises and said in a statement that Norwegian civil authorities were
leading the search and rescue efforts.

  Rescuers searching from the air saw signs of the aircraft in the area where
it went missing but the weather was too bad for them to land, the Norwegian
emergency services said.

  Rescue teams and police were heading to the area, it added.

  "We are not at the site itself so we know nothing of the four people who
were on board. But we know it is a crash site," HRS spokesman Jan Eskil
Severinsen said on the NRK television channel.

  Cold Response 2022 aims to test how Norway would manage allied
reinforcements on its soil in the event that NATO's mutual defence clause
were triggered.

  This week's exercises came amid high tension between Russia and NATO over
Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, but they were planned long before that
offensive began on February 24.