August 15 and 17, 2018

The Defense Ministry on August 14 announced that three U.S. Ospreys on the day made emergency landings in the prefectures of Kagoshima and Okinawa.

According to the Defense Ministry, an MV-22 Osprey at 5:20 pm on the day made a forced landing at Amami Airport in Kagoshima Prefecture. This is the third incident of this kind at the airport this year. Within just an hour after that, two other MV-22s caused similar accidents at the U.S. Kadena base in Okinawa Prefecture. The three aircraft are based at the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station in Okinawa.

In protest against the three incidents, the Japan Peace Committee on the following day sent to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and Defense Minister Onodera Itsunori a written request demanding that all U.S. Ospreys in Japan be grounded and then removed from the country.

In the document, the JPC pointed out that Futenma-based MV-22s have caused two crashes and made six emergency landings since December 2016 alone. It stressed that the danger from the MV-22s is obvious to everyone. The peace group stated that MV-22s deployed to the U.S. Futenma base in Okinawa and CV-22s stationed at the U.S. Yokota base in Tokyo must be withdrawn from Japan without delay.

Past related articles:
> US Ospreys yet again forced to make emergency landings at civilian airport in Kagoshima [June 5, 2018]
> US fighter and Ospreys make emergency landings within just two days [April 25 and 26, 2018]