Window falls from US Marine chopper onto Okinawa school

December 14, 2017

Ginowan, Okinawa Pref.- A window frame fell from a US military aircraft on Wednesday onto the grounds of an elementary school in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, southern Japan.

According to the prefectural government and other sources, the object that fell on the school adjacent to the US Marine Corps' Futenma air base measured about 90 centimeters square and had been attached to the Marines' CH-53E large transport helicopter.

A student complained that something hit his hand when the object fell, but no external wounds were found.

The incident fueled anger and concerns among local residents, following a similar accident on Thursday, when an object that apparently fell off a US military aircraft was found on the roof of a nursery located about 300 meters from the air station.

The prefectural government on Wednesday asked the US military to halt flights of all of its aircraft in Okinawa and thoroughly inspect them.

According to sources including the Okinawa government, the frame was made of iron and the window was broken.

A total of some 50 second- and fourth-graders were in the playground at the time of the fall, around 10:10 a.m. (1:10 a.m. GMT), for a physical education class. The object fell about a dozen meters away from them. Something, apparently a pebble, thrown up by the falling object, hit the left hand of a 10-year-old boy.

The Marine Corps confirmed that a window from the helicopter fell onto the elementary school.

Brig. Gen. Paul Rock, who commands the Marine Corps installations in the Pacific region, visited the prefectural government office on Wednesday. "I would like to express my sincere apology for the anxiety caused to the people of Okinawa by today's highly regrettable incident," he said.

Rock indicated that all CH-53E aircraft returned to Futenma base after the incident and that their flights were canceled to carry out safety checks.

"This can't be tolerated," Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga told reporters after he visited the site of the latest incident. "We have to protect children the most," he said, adding that "I don't really have words" for the incident.

The object found at the nursery on Thursday was a cover for equipment to detect damage in the rotary wings of a CH-53E aircraft. The US side has denied that the object fell during a flight.

The Futenma base is located in a crowded residential area in Ginowan, and there have been many complaints about the risk of accidents involving US aircraft.

In October, a CH-53E helicopter based in the air station burst into flames and was badly damaged near a US military training area in the village of Higashi in Okinawa.

The US military suspended flights of the aircraft soon after the incident but resumed operations a week later. Jiji Press