TOKYO — A United States Navy aircraft carrying 11 crew and passengers crashed Wednesday southeast of Okinawa, Japan, the fifth accident this year for the Seventh Fleet, the Navy’s largest overseas fleet.

According to a statement from the Seventh Fleet, the aircraft was on its way to the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier currently operating in the Philippine Sea.

NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, reported that eight people had been rescued and that a search was continuing for the remaining three. No information was released about the condition of the survivors.

According to NHK, the aircraft was a C-2 propeller cargo plane often used to carry supplies and passengers to and from aircraft carriers. The Ronald Reagan has been participating in a series of military drills in recent weeks and is engaged now in a joint exercise with Japan’s navy, known as the Maritime Self Defense Forces, NHK said.

Speaking to reporters, Itsunori Onodera, Japan’s defense minister, said a United States source had indicated that the aircraft might have had engine trouble.

The accident comes three months after a United States naval destroyer, the U.S.S. McCain, collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Singapore, leaving 10 dead. That episode came just two months after a fatal collision between another naval destroyer, the Fitzgerald, and a Philippine merchant vessel off the coast of Japan. Seven people on the Fitzgerald were killed.

The Navy relieved Vice Adm. Joseph P. Aucoin, the head of the Seventh Fleet, of his command in August.

Based in Yokosuka, Japan, the Seventh Fleet is the Navy’s biggest and busiest fleet, with 20,000 sailors and 50 to 70 vessels.

In reports released this month, the Navy’s top officer said the two destroyer crashes were “avoidable” and had resulted from a string of crew and basic navigational errors.

Wednesday’s accident off Okinawa followed a car crash on the island prefecture in which a United States Marine driving a military truck collided with another driver, killing him.

Last month, a transport helicopter made an emergency landing after catching fire in a United States military training area on the northern part of Okinawa. No crew members or civilians were injured.

Makiko Inoue and Hisako Ueno contributed reporting.