TOKYO, March 28 The Okinawa Prefectural Legislative Assembly protested connection with the resumption of flights of US Osprey tiltrotors, the Kyodo agency reported.
The protest and written opinion that tiltrotors need to be removed from the US Marine Corps base Futenma were accepted unanimously.
In March, the US military resumed tiltrotor flights, which had been stopped since November due to an accident in Japan that killed 8 people.
There are currently 29 Osprey tiltrotors deployed in Japan: at the Yokota Air Force Base near Tokyo 5 and at the Futenma Marine Corps Base on Okinawa 24, as well as 14 such tiltrotors owned by the Ground Self-Defense Forces and stationed at the Kisarazu base in Chiba, just outside Tokyo.
Despite assurances from the Ministry of Defense that detailed explanations were received from the American side, there is no detailed information about the causes of the accident in the public domain. This is explained by the specifics of the issue related to secrecy.
People in areas where Osprey flights take place are concerned about tiltrotor safety issues.
The Osprey CV22 tiltrotor, assigned to the American Yokota base in Tokyo, crashed on November 29, 2023 near the Japanese island of Yakushima in Kagoshima Prefecture. The island lies between the US base Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture, where he departed, and the US base Kadena in Okinawa, the final destination of the route. Shortly before the crash, the plane requested an emergency landing at Yakushima Airport. Eyewitnesses saw flames coming out of the left engine of the tiltrotor. There were 8 people on board, all of them died. This is the first Osprey accident in Japan causing loss of life. After the crash, the United States temporarily stopped using this type of tiltrotor in the world and promised Japan that further use would be agreed in advance with the Japanese side.