Uruma mayor protests U.S. chopper crash-landing

January 7, 2018

Uruma, Okinawa Pref.- Toshio Shimabukuro, mayor of Uruma, Okinawa Prefecture, lodged Sunday a protest with the Defense Ministry against a U.S. helicopter's crash-landing on an island in his city the previous day.

Meeting with Koichiro Nakajima, chief of the ministry's Okinawa Defense Bureau, in the Uruma city hall, Shimabukuro demanded that the ministry make the U.S. military implement thorough safety measures.

The U.S. forces in the southernmost Japan prefecture have caused trouble "too many times," the mayor said. "There will be a catastrophe, in the end," he stressed.

In response, Nakajima said he is very sorry. "In fact, too many accidents have happened," he admitted.

The UH-1 helicopter belonging to the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air station in Ginowan crash-landed on a shore of the Ikeijima island on Saturday afternoon. A private house is only 100 meters away from the landing site. Jiji Press