Okinawans angry as US resumes dangerous Osprey flights

The United States has resumed flights of the deadly Osprey military aircraft, as the root cause of fatal crashes involving one in November 2023 in Japan remains unknown.

On Thursday, the US military resumed Osprey flights in Japan after a 3-month hiatus, sparking anger in the southern region of Okinawa, where most US forces are based.

The Okinawa governor said the worried locals had not been given an adequate explanation about the resumption of Osprey flights.

“We... feel extreme anger that reports of flight resumption came before an explanation to locals,” governor Denny Tamaki told reporters Wednesday.

The local government in Okinawa district, where most of the 54,000 US military personnel in Japan are based, has long been unhappy about Osprey operations.

“We continue to demand the US military and the Japanese government not resume flights until they make clear the accident's cause and countermeasures, and remove Ospreys” from Okinawa, Tamaki said.

Okinawan's suffering has continued since the 1945 Battle of Okinawa fought between the United States and Japan. The US controlled the island for the next 27 years and now has military bases in Okinawa.

Abuse at the hands of US military forces

US military personnel have subjected local women to a storm of sexual violence with hundreds of reported cases.

The rape of a 12-year-old girl by three US service members in 1995 and the rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman by a Marine in 2016 caught the world’s attention. The events triggered mass protests on the island, attended by tens of thousands of Okinawans demanding the revision of the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement, known as SOFA.

Just a year after the 2016 rape case, in August 2017, a US Marine seized a woman’s mobile phone and raped her in an alleyway.

Violence against women has been regarded as the most serious issue under the Japan-US Security Treaty.

Now as the local population is concerned over the transport aircraft’s safety, the explanation by the governments of the US and Japan have only exasperated anxieties among people.

The Japanese Defense Ministry said, “We don't know the root cause of the accident… The details reportedly cannot yet be revealed because the US’ investigation is ongoing and there are limitations under U.S. law until a report will be released.”

It is said that the cause of the November 29 crash was the “malfunctioning of a specific part” but details about the mentioned part and what measures were taken have not been clarified.

US forces have a fleet of over 470 Osprey transport aircraft.

A US Osprey crashed off Japan in November, killing all eight people on board and prompting the decision the following month to ground the aircraft worldwide.

A crash in northern Australia killed three US Marines in August 2023, and another in Norway in 2022 left four dead. Three Marines were also killed in 2017 when another Osprey crashed off Australia's north coast and 19 Marines died when their Osprey crashed during drills in Arizona in 2000.

The United States temporarily grounded the aircraft in Japan in 2016 after an Osprey crash-landed off Okinawa.

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