Faulty rotor may have caused US helicopter mishap in Japan

TOKYO: A faulty rotor may have caused a US military helicopter to make an emergency landing on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, a Japanese official said yesterday.

It was the latest in a series of accidents involving US military equipment that have fuelled local opposition to the basing of American forces on the island.

The US Marine Corps told Japanese authorities that the UH1 helicopter made the emergency landing Saturday afternoon after its indicators suggested the possible problem.

“The US side has told us that while the helicopter was conducting a routine flight along the coast of Okinawa, an indicator came on to suggest that the main rotor was spinning too fast,” a spokesman at the Okinawa Defence Bureau of the Japanese defence ministry told AFP.

“Then the crew performed the emergency landing” on a beach on Ikei Island, just off the main island of Okinawa, he said.

None of the four crew members was injured.

Teams of US service members disassembled the helicopter on the beach Sunday, television footage showed.

Officials with the US Marines could not immediately be reached for comment.

Last month a window from a US military helicopter fell onto a school sports ground near the Futenma Marine air base in Okinawa, but no one was injured.

In October an American military helicopter burst into flames after landing in an empty field on the island. — AFP