April 19, 2014

Four 55-gallon (840 kg in total) drum cans fell from a U.S. Marines’ aircraft during its flight training exercise on April 17 at the Iejima Auxiliary airport on Ie Island in Okinawa.

The dropped drums were found at a new U.S. base construction site located about one kilometer away from the airport and no injuries were reported, according to Ie Town.

On the following day, accompanying the town mayor, Japanese Communist Party member of the town assembly Naka Minoru examined the drop site. Naka said, “It was only three weeks ago when we protested another U.S. military aircraft’s drop incident. The U.S. forces should halt flight training exercises that cause such incidents repeatedly.”

On March 26, a C130 transport airplane of the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma base dropped an unopened parachute outside the training field.

A similar accident happened in October 2002. A plastic water bottle fell on private land from a flying MC130 multi-mission combat aircraft based at the U.S. Kadena Air Base.

Past related articles:
> Ie Village assembly protests unopened US parachute falling near residential area [April 2 & 4, 2014]
> Discarded US marine’s parachute falls from the sky in Okinawa [March 28, 2014]