Poor Osprey Crashes

The 10th Coast Guard Headquarters in Kagoshima received an emergency call in Wednesday afternoon that a tilt-rotor plane, CV-22 Osprey, crashed to offshore to the sea. The headquarters found a wrecked plane belonging to United States Yokota Air Base in Tokyo one kilometer offshore Yakushima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture. Having seen accumulated troubles, Japan’s public skepticism against Osprey is going to be enlarged.

One crew out of eight found dead after a fishery boat salvaged him and brought to a port. The guard kept on searching other seven. The plane was on its way to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa from Iwakuni Air Base in Yamaguchi. While Yakushima Airport Control Office received a request of emergency landing before the crash, some residents of the island witnessed fire in the plane body. It is doubted that the plane had a trouble in engine.

 

Osprey has become a synonym of skepticisms against U.S. military equipment. From the beginning of deployment of Osprey in Okinawa 2012, there were broad concerns on safety of the tilt-rotor plane. One Osprey from Futenma Air Base fell down to offshore Nago, Okinawa, in December 2016. Another one dropped its parts onto Okinawa Island or its offshore in August 2021.

 

Deployment of Osprey to Okinawa caused bitter division in Japanese society. When the political leaders and the residents in Okinawa made a demonstration against Osprey in Tokyo in 2013, some rightwing audience hurled the word of “Leave Japan” or “Unpatriotic” to the demonstrators. That made a traumatic memory for the people in Okinawa. “Posing 74% of U.S. bases in Japan to Okinawa, can we say that Japan is a democratic state? Does Okinawa depend on Japan, or Japan depend on Okinawa?” said then Governor of Okinawa Takeshi Onaga.

 

Receiving criticisms against concentration of security burden in Okinawa, the government of Japan and U.S. Force promoted dispersing the exercises of Osprey around Japan. The flying of Osprey invited protests around the bases in such as Iwakuni, Yokota or in Hokkaido. Although the plane is expected to work well with longer cruising distance than normal helicopter, it is unwelcomed everywhere in Japan.

 

Regardless those deep skepticisms, Japanese government decided to introduce Ospreys to Ground Self-defense Force in 2014. They are temporarily deployed to Kisarazu Base in Chiba. Ministry of Defense has a plan to deploy them to a base in Saga by July 2025. It is likely that the plan will be reviewed after the crash in Yakushima.

 

Having been reported about the crash, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered Ministry of Defense to demand U.S, Force in Japan temporary halt of flight of Osprey and thorough investigation on the crush. But his words were still ambiguous. “It is an issue which needs to be considered after facts in the accident is confirmed and reviewing what is needed and what is required,” Kishida said to the reporters in Wednesday evening. He has not been able to remove anxiety on the plane.

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