The U.S. military plans to resume Osprey aircraft flights as early as Thursday in Japan after lifting a worldwide flight ban last week following a deadly crash off a southwestern Japanese island in November, the Japanese Defense Ministry said.
The ministry explained the plan to local authorities in several prefectures on Wednesday, including Okinawa, where many U.S. Ospreys are based, but immediately faced strong opposition due to lingering safety concerns about the tilt-rotor aircraft.
The ministry said the Ground Self-Defense Force's fleet of Ospreys will also restart flights from Thursday at the earliest, having been grounded since the incident in November that killed all eight crew members on board the U.S. Air Force CV-22 transport plane.
"We are totally unconvinced, and it (the resumption of the Osprey flights) is unacceptable," Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki told reporters in Naha, noting that the government's explanation regarding the cause of the incident remains insufficient.
Masanori Matsugawa, mayor of the Okinawa city of Ginowan, the home of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, a base that where MV-22 Osprey are stationed, said that there was "no explanation about the cause of the accident" from the ministry officials.
"We want (the government) to take steps so that the anxiety of the local citizens can be eased," Matsugawa told reporters.
In Tokyo, Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara told reporters that he had confirmed with his U.S. counterpart, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, during their phone talks that the resumption of Osprey flights will be carried out in stages and carefully, while prioritizing safety.
The Pentagon said in a press release that Austin had underscored that the "safety of U.S. service members and Japanese communities remains a top priority."
The ministry officials said earlier that while the U.S. military had identified the cause of the accident, it cannot be made public as the investigation by U.S. forces is ongoing.
Tokyo and Washington have been coordinating the schedule for resuming Osprey operations in Japan after the U.S. military on Friday cleared the aircraft to fly again globally without providing details of the cause of the November accident.
The United States grounded all of its Ospreys worldwide on Dec. 6, a week after the U.S. Air Force CV-22 transport plane crashed into the sea near Yakushima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture on Nov. 29 during an exercise.
The accident occurred as the CV-22 aircraft assigned to Yokota Air Base in the western suburbs of Tokyo was heading to Okinawa's Kadena Air Base from a U.S. military base in Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture, western Japan.
The incident was the deadliest one involving Ospreys since their combat debut in 2007, renewing concerns in Japan, a close U.S. security ally, about the safety of the aircraft, which is capable of taking off and landing like a helicopter but cruising like a plane.
Austin had instructed U.S. forces and relevant departments not to operate Ospreys in Japan without coordinating with Tokyo in advance, Kihara told reporters in January.
Shortly after the United States decided to lift the flight ban, Kihara said his ministry had confirmed the Ospreys in Japan are now "able to resume their operations safely."
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