美海军确认去年菲律宾海坠落的运输机位置

The U.S. Navy says it has located a transport plane that crashed in November into the Philippine Sea, killing three sailors.

The C-2A Greyhound aircraft plummeted into the sea while it was on a routine mission the day before Thanksgiving, taking passengers and cargo from a U.S. base in Japan to the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier.

Deep water salvage experts were deployed to the crash site last month. The Navy said in a statement that the team was able to locate the aircraft's emergency pinger.

The C-2A aircraft rests at a depth of about 18,500 feet, and the Navy said this makes the salvage phase of the operation "the deepest recovery attempt of an aircraft to date."

The Navy said the team will return to the crash site in the coming weeks to map the debris field and attach heavy lines for lifting the aircraft to the surface. "Every effort will be made to recover the aircraft and our fallen Sailors," the Navy said.

The cause of the crash is under investigation.