An Osprey, a tiltrotor military aircraft, has fallen on shallow water in the ocean only 80 meters away from the beach in Okinawa. Two crews out of 5 were injured. Pentagon says it was "a mishap". But the photo shows it was a complete crash. Here is the news with photo.
If it fell in the city or Uruma where the accident occurred close by, there could have been many people killed. They say, since it started flying in 1991, there have been 7 major crashes and 30 fatalities due to the accidents of Osprey. I am curious to know if this numbers are in the expected range compared with the other helicopters. Osprey is known to make big noise. This fallen one has made a night time training very near to the residential area. I am sorry for the people in Okinawa who are forced to be jeopardized by the risk of accident and to suffer from its terrible noise at night.
I hope the US government will realize there won't be any military base and military presence working well unless the people in the area would approve them. Okinawa has been agonized during the WWII and ever since.
Hi Shin
ReplyDeleteJapan spends a huge amount of money annually on the upkeep of US bases there, but Trump adds insult to injury saying that Asian nations are not paying enough for security. Many outsiders such as I can't understand how Japan got itself in this position. Possibly I need to read up on history. How can Japan claim to be an independent nation when it is being used by the USA nation as a gigantic aircraft carrier?
John,
DeleteReally, Japan has not been independent since WWII. We have behaved ourselves like a people of independent country while the system, political or economical, has been dependent on the US, or has been administered within the intention of the US. Now our prime minister, a revisionist, is trying to get out of that regime after the WWII. The contradiction will get even more profound.
Okinawa has suffered from the relationship with the authority of the government in Japan. After terrible military battle was made in the WWII with tens of thousands of casualities among the civilians, it has been deserted as an island of military base by our government since the end of WWII. Our government has decided to leave it in that position. This separation by the government is even a more serious problem for Okinawans than the problem caused by the US military itself.
We are grateful to American people to let us construct our nation under the idea of democracy. But the contradiction between the reality and the pretension is growing more and more as time passes. It is most prominent in this small island of Okinawa.
Shin