The pilot of a U.S. Marine Corps AV-8 Harrier fighter was
rescued and reportedly safe after a jet he flew crashed into the ocean off the
coast of southwestern Okinawa in Japan.
The U.S. military in Camp Butler in Okinawa said the cause
of Thursday’s crash is still under investigation.
According to the CNN, the jet departed the Kadena US airbase
and crashed east of Okinawa.
Officials said at least one person has been rescued from the
crash site after the Japanese coast guard deployed rescue teams at 2 p.m. local
time (1 a.m ET).
The crashed aircraft is reportedly a twin-seater variant,
although the Harrier fighter is typically a single-pilot plane. At the time of
writing, it was unclear how many were on board the jet.
The aircraft had been assigned to Okinawa, which hosts more
than half of the 50,000 U.S. troops based in Japan under a bilateral security
agreement.
Other details were not immediately available. The Japanese
Coast Guard also confirmed the crash, which occurred about 153 kilometers (95
miles) east of the main Okinawan island.
People in Okinawa have complained about crashes, noise from
aircraft and crime by service members for years, and some say they are unfairly
burdened with housing U.S. troops.
Last week, a Japanese court has ruled that Okinawa Gov.
Takeshi Onaga’s revocation of a reclamation permit for a U.S. military base on
the southern island was illegal, despite
protests from locals.
The US has held military bases in Okinawa since the end of
World War Two. Until 1972, Okinawa was administered by the US – an issue that
still holds some ill-feeling among some of the Okinawan population.
The islands are referred to as “the keystone of the Pacific”
by military planners, because of their strategic location: closer to Taiwan
than the Japanese mainland, but inhabited by an allied population.
As a result, the small archipelago prefecture (which takes
up around 0.6 per cent of Japan’s land area) is home to about 75 per cent of
the US military facilities in Japan, including almost 20,000 troops plus their
dependents.
-Asiancorrespondent
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