A CV-22 Osprey assigned to the 353rd Special Operations Wing participates in a demonstration during a festival at Yokota Air Base, Japan, May 17, 2025. (Jarrett Smith/U.S. Air Force)
Two U.S. Air Force CV-22 Ospreys made precautionary landings at civilian airports in northern Japan over the past week, according to the Air Force and Japanese officials.
A tiltrotor aircraft from the 353rd Special Operations Wing at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, landed at 9:45 a.m. Thursday at Iwate Hanamaki Airport in Hanamaki, wing spokesman 1st Lt. Cullen Drenkhahn said by email that day. No injuries or damage were reported, and commercial flights were not affected.
“The landing was executed safely and in accordance with policies,” he wrote. “An assessment is ongoing to gather additional information.”
The wing’s Ospreys are assigned to the 21st Special Operations Squadron at Yokota Air Base, an airlift hub in western Tokyo.
Another Yokota-based Osprey landed at 3:55 p.m. on July 18 at Odate-Noshiro Airport in Kitaakita city, according to a news release that day on Akita prefecture’s website. No injuries or commercial flights delays were reported. The aircraft departed for Misawa Air Base at 10:55 p.m. the same day.
The Tohoku Defense Bureau told the prefecture that the pilot landed the Osprey in response to an inflight warning indicator, according to an updated statement on the website Tuesday.
Drenkhahn did not respond to questions about the July 18 incident.
Akita prefecture wrote the defense bureau Tuesday seeking a explanation for the landing from the Air Force and for faster notifications of future landings, a spokesman with the prefecture’s international division said by phone Thursday.
Some Japanese government officials speak to the press only on condition of anonymity.
The Osprey is a tiltrotor aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a fixed-wing plane.
The United States and Japan grounded their tiltrotor fleets for nearly three months following the Nov. 29, 2023, crash of a CV-22B Osprey assigned to Air Force Special Operations Command near Yakushima, an island south of Kyushu, that killed eight airmen.
An investigation determined the crash was caused by a catastrophic mechanical failure, compounded by what officials described as a “lack of urgency” by the crew in addressing an engine issue.
U.S. tiltrotors were briefly grounded again on Dec. 6 after a CV-22B Osprey from Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., lost an engine but landed safely following gearbox-related warning indications.
