Two American Military Planes Crash: A Drastic Review of Airbase Operations Is Needed

On the fourth of this month, an F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter plane attached to the U.S. Navy and an AV-8B Harrier fighter plane attached to the U.S. Marine Corps crashed, one after the other. The Super Hornet, attached to the U.S. Navy’s George Washington aircraft carrier located in Japan, occasionally came flying into Kadena Air Base as well. The Harrier also flew frequently to Kadena Air Base from Yuma Air Base and Iwakuni Air Base, located in Yamaguchi prefecture, which means that even Okinawa is not immune to accidents within the United States.

Including these two crashes, the understanding is that there have been seven U.S. aircraft crashes in the United States and the U.K. this year. These are exceedingly abnormal circumstances. The machines involved in these crashes were the HH-60G Pave Hawk, MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and the F/A-18E Hornet. The aforementioned Harrier and F/A-18E also crashed in January and May of this year, respectively. The HH-60G Pave Hawks are also deployed at Kadena Air Base, and the MH-60 Black Hawk is the same type as the HH-60G. The F/A-18 often flies over both Futenma and Kadena airfields, and all models fly over Okinawa, which means that the possibility of a crash in Okinawa cannot be denied in any way.

In the 41-year period between 1972 and 2013, there have been 45 U.S. aircraft crashes in the prefecture. That comes out to at least one aircraft crash per year. When an F-15 fighter from Kadena Air Base crashed in May last year, the U.S. Air Force reopened the flight two days later without even waiting for the investigation into the cause of the accident.

Furthermore, after the accident investigation results were announced six months later, it was concluded that a dysfunction of the auxiliary steering equipment was the cause of the crash, but the reason for the malfunction was “not found.” In short, the cause of the crash was never really identified. Despite this, the exact same model routinely flies over Okinawa’s skies. Conversely, a Boeing 787 that was discovered to have issues with the battery emitting smoke after an accident investigation had its operation suspended for four months. It seems like the U.S. military is saying that the continuation of pilot training is more important than the lives of the citizens in the prefecture. This is extremely unreasonable.

A rule of thumb regarding work-related accidents is Heinrich’s Law, which states that for every major-injury accident, there are 29 minor-injury accidents and 300 injury-free accidents. Emergency landings and mechanical failure accidents involving U.S. aircraft have been happening one after the other this year. To prevent a major accident, you should be thorough in your safety measures.

In addition to withdrawing the crash-prone aircraft from Okinawa and instituting a no-fly zone over the city and town areas, the American military should radically reexamine fundamental base operations, as well as the way things should be with regard to the flight of U.S. aircraft.