U.S. Air Force Ospreys Arrive at Yokota Base in Tokyo Suburb

April 5, 2018

Tokyo- Five CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport aircraft of the U.S. Air Force arrived at the Yokota base in a Tokyo suburb on Thursday for a brief stop.

The planes will leave for training for two to three months before official deployment at the base expected as early as this summer. They departed from a U.S. military facility in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo, earlier on Thursday.

The arrival of the CV-22 Ospreys is likely to increase local residents' concerns over a possible accident as the aircraft designed to carry special operations troops are expected to conduct low-altitude flight training frequently.

It will be the first deployment of Ospreys at a U.S. military base in Japan other than the Marine Corps' Futenma base in the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, where MV-22 Ospreys are deployed.

According to Japan's Defense Ministry, the CV-22 Osprey's accident rate is estimated at 4.05 per 100,000 flight hours. The CV-22 experienced three serious accidents counted as the U.S. military's Class-A mishaps during its 74,000 hours of flight as of the end of September last year.

The accident rate of the MV-22, whose total flight hours came to some 300,000, surged to 3.24 from the figure of 1.93 recorded as of 2012 following a recent series of accidents.

The U.S. side has told the ministry that it is difficult to calculate a meaningful accident rate for the CV-22 as its total flight hours have yet to reach 100,000.

A total of 10 CV-22s are scheduled to be deployed at the Yokota base in stages over several years.

Initially, the U.S. military planned to deploy the aircraft at the base in the latter half of 2017, and then put off the plan to sometime between 2019 and 2020. The postponement period was eventually shortened apparently because of tensions over North Korea. Jiji Press