Japan Press Weekly

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2013 September 25 - October 1 [US FORCES]

One year after Osprey deployment, Okinawans bear further base burdens

One year has passed since the Japanese and U.S. governments forcibly deployed accident-prone MV22 Ospreys to the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station in Okinawa. People there are still forced to live under fear of crashes and are suffering from increasing noise pollution.

In October last year, as the initial step in the U.S. plan to deploy 24 Ospreys to the Futenma base, 12 Ospreys were stationed at the base. In August this year, additional deployment of the aircraft began, and on September 25, the last of the 24 Ospreys arrived at the base.

The Ospreys at the Futenma base repeatedly fly a residential area en route from U.S. Marine Corps Camp Hansen (Kin Town) and the Iejima Auxiliary airport (Ie Island) after flight training exercises there.

A 69-year-old Kin Town resident who has a mechanical heart valve said that whenever MV22s fly over his home, he experiences an irregular heartbeat. “I feel serious pain in my chest as if it were being shaken violently,” said the man.

His home is located about one kilometer away from the Ospreys’ helipads in Camp Hansen. He said that when the U.S. military conducted the aircraft’s flight training frequently between December last year and January this year, the aircraft came to the base almost every two days. He also said, “I could recognize the pilots’ faces” as they were flying right above his home at very low altitude.

“Even if the Ospreys’ flight training moves to other parts in Japan, it will impose suffering on people there. I want to get the U.S. military to take all the Ospreys back to their homeland,” the man said.

The U.S. forces plan to use the Ospreys during Japan-U.S. joint military exercises which will be held in Shiga and Kochi prefectures in October. They also intend to carry out full-scale flight training drills on mainland Japan.

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It has come to light that an MV22 Osprey on September 20 made an emergency landing at a civil airport in Arizona in the United States due to a fire indicator error.

MV22s this year caused two accidents which were classified as the most serious “Class A” accident.