Japan Press Weekly
[Advanced search]
 
 
HOME
Past issues
Special issues
Books
Fact Box
Feature Articles
Mail to editor
Link
Mail magazine
 
   
 
HOME  > Past issues  > 2017 June 14 - 20  > Okinawa JCP protests against US Osprey’s repeated emergency landings
> List of Past issues
Bookmark and Share
2017 June 14 - 20 [US FORCES]

Okinawa JCP protests against US Osprey’s repeated emergency landings

June 16, 2017
The Japanese Communist Party Okinawa Prefectural Committee on June 15 made representations to the Defense Ministry’s local bureau to protest against repeated emergency landings made by U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey aircraft stationed at the Futenma Air Station and to demand a halt to Osprey flights.

The latest Osprey emergency landing occurred at Amami airport in Kagoshima Prefecture in the evening of June 10, following the emergency landing at the USMC Auxiliary Airfield on Ie-jima Island in Okinawa in the evening of June 6.

The US military said that both cases were preventive landings to avoid an accident as a warning light in the cockpit indicating airframe malfunction during the flight came on.

On behalf of the JCP Okinawa Prefectural Committee, JCP prefectural assembly member Nishime Sumie urged the local defense bureau to reveal the cause for the warning indication as well as the cause for the Osprey crash in the shallows off Nago City last December. She also demanded the suspension of Osprey nighttime flight training exercises.

Nishime pointed out, “It’s a problem that the Japanese government refuses to acknowledge that the Osprey is an accident-prone aircraft which frequently cause serious accidents.”

JCP prefectural assembly members, Kayo Sogi and Tamaki Takemitsu, criticized the local defense bureau for showing no willingness to determine whether the recent Osprey emergency landings were caused by engine trouble or by troubles associated with fuel flow. The two pressed a defense bureau official by saying that, as a sovereign state, Japan should urge the US military to make public the causes of the recent emergency landings.

Past related articles:
> MV-22 Ospreys make 2 emergency landings within a week [June 8 and 13, 2017]
> Okinawans have witnessed US aircraft crash once a year for half a century [May 15, 2017]
> US military recovers crashed Osprey ignoring Japan’s request [December 17 & 18, 2016]
> List of Past issues
 
  Copyright (c) Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. All right reserved