U.S. military Osprey aircraft has crash-landed off Japan’s southern island of Okinawa, but its five crewmembers were safely rescued.
(FOX)- The U.S. Marine Corps. said Wednesday that an MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft landed in shallow water off Okinawa’s east coast late Tuesday.
They said in a statement that the crewmembers were airlifted to a Navy hospital at the Kadena Air Base for treatment. Japanese defense officials said two of them sustained injuries that were not life-threatening.
The crash just off Nago City triggered protests on Okinawa, where anti-U.S. military sentiment is already strong. Many Okinawans were opposed to deploying the Osprey on the island due to safety concerns following a string of crashes outside Japan, including one in Hawaii last year.
“This is what we have feared might happen someday,” Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine, told Japan’s NHK public TV from near the crash scene. “We can never live safely here.”