Helicopters Keep Falling on Okinawa

A military helicopter affiliated to United States Futenma Air Base in Okinawa made emergency landing on the coast of Ikeijima Island causing no human damage Saturday afternoon. Another military helicopter made another emergency landing on Okinawa Main Island two days later. Probably caused by hard training in Okinawa facing threat of North Korea, US Force keeps on reiterating various accidents, precipitating the residents into deep fear and fury.

According to information arrived on Okinawa Defense Bureau, a local branch of Ministry of Defense, the helicopter was a UH1 from Futenma Air Base. US military explains that the helicopter made preventive landing, because a warning sign in the cockpit was lit. No injury in four crews was reported. Ikeijima is located on the 40 kilometers northeast of Okinawa Main Island. The helicopter landed 130 meters away from a house of the residents and 60 meters from a road for agriculture.

Only a year has passed since another US military helicopter AH1 made emergency landing in Ikeijima. Residents of the island were surprised with extraordinary operation of US military. A man living around witnessed the helicopter flying in an extremely low altitude. “It was on an agricultural field last time, but it is close to the houses this time. The coast it landed was the area of diving fishery of my father. I feel scared, when I think about what if he were in his work there,” he told Mainichi Shimbun.

On the same day when US Force’s huge heavy-lift helicopter CH-53 salvaged UH1 removing from Ikeijima, AH1 made emergency landing on Yomitan village, Okinawa, in Monday evening. Although no resident or the crew was injured, the people in Okinawa again surprised with the landing as only 400 meters close as a luxury resort hotel on the coast. US Force again explained that the helicopter made preventive landing when warning sign lit in the cockpit during the flight in a cloudy whether.

The frequency of unusual operation of US Force in Okinawa is far from normal. After notorious tiltrotor MV-22 Osprey fell down along the coast of Nago City, where consistent protest against building new US base was ongoing, in December 2016, the people in Okinawa have been highly afraid of possible accident. A month ago, a US military helicopter dropped cockpit window on an elementary school close to Futenma Air Base. As long as seeing the operation of dropping something from the sky, US Force looks like having military exercise of air raid in Okinawa.

Governor of Okinawa, Takeshi Onaga, accused US Force of keeping on flying over the islands of Okinawa with no improvement after consecutive accidents. While Japanese government repeatedly request preventive measures, the force topped by unilateral President Donald Trump has shown no effective result.