オスプレイの日本での低空飛行訓練は地上15メートルでも実施予定

米海兵隊、オスプレイの日本での低空飛行訓練は地上50フィート(=約15メートル!)でも実施する予定です。Final Environmental Review for Basing MV-22 at MCAS Futenma and Operating in Japan (April 2012) の57ページに記載されています。アジアタイムズで書きました。

以下、昨日書いた、オスプレイに関する最新記事です。冒頭、英語のブログでも書いた、執筆後の感想を書いてあります。

Although the US repeatedly stresses “the MV-22 is a highly capable aircraft with an excellent safety record,” the majority of the Japanese people don't believe such “myth of security” or “safety dogma” any more in the wake of the nuclear meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Until March 11, 2011, the Japanese government had long said the nation's nuclear plants were all proven safe. This has eroded public confidence in politics and sparked the nation's largest demonstrations every Friday in half a century since 1960s around when the Japan-US Security Treaty was revised.

Noda seems to be increasingly concerned over the deployment of the Osprey, which could deal a fatal blow to his already-suffering administration. His cabinet’s public approval rating fell to 20-30 percent, according to recent polls conducted by the Japanese media.

By destabilizing the Japanese government, the deployment of the Osprey seems to be providing Japanese people a good opportunity to think twice what for US bases and facilities in Japan are.


Noda feels heat over Osprey deployment
Japanese have accused Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of "subservience" to the United States following the arrival of controversial Osprey aircraft soon to be deployed on Okinawa island. Noda says historic agreements leave Tokyo no room to maneuver, but this hasn't eased fears that the tilt-rotor aircraft's safety record makes it entirely unsuited for a highly populated area. - Kosuke Takahashi (Jul 26, '12)

Noda feels heat over Osprey deployment
By Kosuke Takahashi

TOKYO - The US Marine Corps (USMC) this week deployed 12 Bell-Boeing MV-22 Osprey aircraft to its Iwakuni Air Station in Yamaguchi prefecture of western Japan, despite concerns over the tilt-rotor aircraft's safety record heightened by two recent crashes.

More than 500 citizens on Monday staged rallies around the air base over the arrival of the Ospreys, with dozens of local people taking to fishing boat and dinghies to demonstrate in its harbor. Washington plans to deploy the MV-22s to Air Station Futenma in the city of Ginowan, Okinawa, in September.

In an attempt to ease local hostility, the US and the Japanese governments have agreed to refrain from test-flying the aircraft until the results of a US probe into its two recent crashes - one in Morocco in April and another in Florida in mid-June - are complete. Both governments are sticking to a plan to start full-scale operations of the Osprey at the Marines' Futenma Air Station on Okinawa in October after maintenance and trial flights at Iwakuni.

However, tensions over the Osprey will likely escalate further in coming weeks, local activists hoping to attract hundreds of thousands to the island's largest-ever protest rally on August 5.

Critics argue that Tokyo has failed to stand up to the US on the issue.

"The deployment itself is a basic policy of the US government," Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said flatly on a Fuji Television program on July 16. "Although Japan is an ally of the US, basically this isn't a matter where we tell the US government what to do."

Accused by an opposition lawmaker of subservience to the US over the Osprey deployment on July 24, Noda apologized for having given insufficient explanations as to his reasons for this.

The Japan-US security treaty
According to Noda, in 1960 when the Japan-US Security Treaty was revised, then prime minister Nobusuke Kishi and US secretary of state Christian Herter conducted an exchange of notes on the implementation of Article 6, agreeing that the US would consult with the Japanese government in advance regarding important changes in US military equipment in Japan.

Noda said the matter of the Osprey is not subject to prior consultations under the bilateral security treaty as "important changes in US military equipment in Japan" only cover "nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and the like".

Noda also said the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which has governed the management and operations of the US military in Japan since 1960, stipulates that US warplanes, such as the Osprey, are allowed to fly not only above US facilities and land areas in Japan but also above any area other than those.

As Asia Times Online reported in June, the United States Marine Corps (USMC) plans to conduct MV-22 Osprey's low-altitude flight training in Japan via six different flight routes above the Japanese archipelago. (See US Marines eye Japan as a training yard, Asia Times Online, June 23, 2012)

People in Chugoku areas such as Iwakuni City have pointed out there is a seventh route, a so-called brown route, which the USMC currently uses in Japan. Furthermore, the report, "Final Environmental Review for Basing MV-22 at MCAS Futenma and Operating in Japan" (April 2012), lists plans to conduct low-level flight training down to 50 feet, or 15.24 meters above ground level.

If the USMC plans to continue using the brown route for Osprey's flight training, critics have asked why it didn't mentioned this in its report on the deployment.

Critics have demand Tokyo ask Washington to review the deployment of the Osprey, despite Noda's inflexible approach.

"There is still room for negotiation," Ukeru Magosaki, the former chief of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's international intelligence bureau, told Asia Times Online. "The US and Japan have agreed to reduce burdens on Okinawa residents. Deploying the Osprey to Futenma increases danger. This clearly runs counter to the US-Japan agreements."

The already-controversial Futenma Air Station is located in a densely populated area of the city of Ginowan, which is surrounded by more than 100 schools, hospitals and shops. In November 2003, when then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Okinawa and looked over Futenma from the air, he said he could not believe there were not more accidents in such a place. He called it "the world's most dangerous base".

In April 1996, Japan and the US agreed to relocate the Futenma Air Station. But the local government has demanded the closure of the Futenma site while rejecting a prolonged plan to construct a sea-based replacement facility off Camp Schwab in the north of the island.

In August 2004, a US Marines CH-53 military helicopter crashed into a university building in the city, causing no serious damage or injuries but causing a major international incident. (Thanks to summer vacation, most students were off-campus.)

In 1959, a US fighter jet also crashed into an elementary school in central Okinawa, leaving 17 people dead, including 11 children. Okinawans remember these accidents vividly.

'Know nothing' stance
Okinawans have accused their central government of inaction over the dispute, saying the Okinawa Defense Bureau has ignored the issue despite the deployment of the Osprey to Futenma being announced in the US Navy's 1992 document "Master Plan for Marine Corps Air Station Futenma" and in the 1996 Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO) draft.

Although the US repeatedly stresses "the MV-22 is a highly capable aircraft with an excellent safety record," the majority of Japanese are even less likely to accept such pledges following the attempted cover-up of failures that contributed to the nuclear meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant following an earthquake there last March.

Noda seems to be increasingly concerned over the deployment of the Osprey, which could deal a fatal blow to his embattled administration. His cabinet's public approval rating fell to 20-30%, according to recent polls conducted by the Japanese media.

Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based Japanese journalist. Besides Asia Times Online, he also writes for Jane's Defence Weekly as Tokyo correspondent. His twitter is @TakahashiKosuke

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