Eight warships today joined a US aircraft carrier and scores of helicopters and planes to search for three American sailors who went missing after their plane crashed in the Philippine Sea. <br/><br/>The C-2A "Greyhound" aircraft with 11 people on board went down on Wednesday afternoon around 930 kilometres southeast of Okinawa. <br/><br/>The US Navy said in a statement that eight sailors were rescued shortly after the accident and taken for medical evaluation to USS Reagan, an aircraft carrier that was in the Philippine Sea for an exercise with Japanese forces. <br/><br/>The plane was on a routine transport flight, carrying passengers and cargo from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in southern Japan to the USS Ronald Reagan. <br/><br/>The Reagan is leading the joint effort by the US and Japanese navies to find the missing sailors.