TOKYO, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- The crash this week of a U.S. Air Force HH-60 helicopter on Okinawa could delay permission further by local politicians to allow the planned relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
Long-time safety concerns by the local population about air movements at Futenma prompted U.S. and Japanese officials to agree to a relocation from the densely populated city of Ginowan to the Henoko district of Nago.
Even though people in Ginowan want the base relocated, they also know thousands of jobs would be lost.
But the people of Henoko are wary of having a base in their area.
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If local opposition on all sides further escalates because of the helicopter crash, Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima could find it increasingly difficult to approve the application to begin land reclamation around Henoko, Asahi Shimbun reported.
Washington and Tokyo are keen to relocate the base near another U.S. base, the remote Camp Schwab, to end safety concerns.
Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said Monday he wants the U.S. military to provide him with information about the helicopter crash.
The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has submitted an application with the Okinawa prefecture authority to start reclamation work at an area near the fishing village of Henoko.
But local residents say they are concerned about the environment, which would, they say, be damaged by a heliport in the surrounding countryside.
The training exercise crash Monday of the HH-60 Pave Hawk sent smoke billowing into the air near Camp Hansen in central Okinawa.
Three crew members are in stable condition while a fourth remained missing late Tuesday.
Stars and Stripes reported the crash occurred just as the Marine Corps was deploying a second squadron of tilt-rotor Ospreys from an air base on mainland Japan to Okinawa.
Two of the scheduled 12 Ospreys arrived on the weekend at Futenma and the rest were to arrive from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni this week.
"While the MV-22s [Ospreys] are operationally ready to deploy to Okinawa, we will delay their departure out of respect for the desires of our Japanese partners and hosts," the Marine Corps on Okinawa said in a prepared statement.
The Marine Corps also said the aircraft has an excellent safety record and the squadron will resume deployment in the near future.
Local leaders in Okinawa prefecture remain concerned about safety issues with the deployment of more military aircraft including Ospreys.
But the helicopter crash has focused most concern over plans to move Futenma, the Asahi Shimbun report said.
"The shock created by such a major accident as the most recent one is immeasurable," Susumu Matayoshi, head of the Okinawa governor's office, said.
"When we think about public sentiment, we can't say there will be no effect on the application for reclamation work [at Henoko]."
The Okinawa prefecture government is expected to make a decision on the reclamation work by the end of the year.
Okinawa is one of the largest islands in the Ryukyu Island chain that curls south of Japan for more than 600 miles toward Taiwan.
The islands are strategically important to the United States because of their proximity to China at a time when Beijing is expanding its naval power including the deployment of the country's first aircraft carrier.
But Okinawa is less than 900 square miles and has a population of around 1.5 million people. More than a dozen U.S. bases on the island have one-third of the 38,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan.
Critics of the U.S. bases on Okinawa says the island has a disproportionate number of U.S. personnel given the island's size.
The U.S. bases are a legacy of World War II when U.S. forces captured the island chain on their way to defeating Japan.
In 1972 the U.S. government returned the islands to Japanese administration but the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security with Japan allows the United States to maintain a large military presence.
Since the return of Okinawa to Japanese authority, 44 crashes involving U.S. military aircraft have occurred, leaving 84 people dead, injured or missing, Asahi Shimbun reported.
In August 2004, a U.S. helicopter crashed into the grounds of Okinawa International University. There were no casualties except for minor injuries to the three U.S. crewmen.
However, the crash reinforced the "move Futenma" protests and as many as 30,000 people reportedly attended rallies the next month in the streets of Ginowan.
(This is the corrected version of an earlier story)
