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NAHA, OKINAWA PREF. – U.S. forces in Japan will ground all CH-53E helicopters to confirm their safety after the same type of helicopter made an emergency landing near a U.S. military test site in Okinawa on Wednesday, Japanese defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said.

The Minister said major General Charles Chiarotti, Deputy commander of the U.S. armed forces in Japan, told him of the decision during his talks in Tokyo on Thursday.

An employee of the local Department of the Ministry of defense said that the crash site was found about 300 meters from houses.

The Japanese and American governments appear to have decided to act quickly to address local concerns to minimize any fallout from the incident ahead of the October 22 General election.

The U.S. marine corps in Japan separately announced a four-day shutdown of CH-53E transport helicopters stationed in Okinawa. The Prefecture hosts the bulk of U.S. military facilities in Japan.

In Wednesday’s accident, the helicopter caught fire in the air during a training flight and caught fire when it made an emergency landing in the Northern U.S. training area on the main island of Okinawa. None of the seven crew members and local residents were injured.

A class a crash is classed as the worst on a four-way scale, resulting in loss of life or permanent total disability, destruction of an aircraft, or damage worth $ 2 million (about 224 million euros) or more, according to the center.

Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga on Thursday expressed his concern over the incident as he visited the site in Higashi village, saying, ” Seeing the sudden change from everyday life to a terrible situation (caused by the accident), I am sad and saddened.”

In Tokyo, Onodera told Chiarotti the accident was “deplorable” and had caused “considerable anxiety among the residents living nearby and other people in the prefecture.”

The Minister also called on the United States to explain the cause of the crash, provide detailed information and take comprehensive safety measures, noting that the crashed plane is a variant of the one that crashed in 2004 at a University in the city of Ginowan in Okinawa.

Chiarotti told Onodera that the helicopter made an emergency landing after smoke, apparently from an engine fire, made its way inside. The plane headed to an area where there were no homes, he added.

The CH-53E helicopter belongs to marine corps air station Futenma in Okinawa. It is the latest in a string of accidents involving us aircraft in Okinawa, where the bulk of us military installations in Japan are located.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered the Defense Ministry and the SDF to use their expertise in looking into the cause of the latest incident rather than solely relying on U.S. probes, a senior government official said.

Local police dispatched officers and cordoned off the scene, investigating a possible violation of Japan’s aviation threat act.

However, it remains unknown whether the Japanese authorities will be able to investigate the reasons, since they do not have the authority to search for or confiscate the assets of the us military without their consent under the Japan-us status of armed forces agreement.

Okinawa Prefecture government officials tried to conduct some environmental tests Wednesday night at the crash site, suspecting that the helicopter may have been equipped with a safety device that contained a low-level radioactive isotope, but they were denied entry by the U.S. military.

Last December, an Osprey tilt-rotor plane made an emergency landing in the sea off Nago, also in Okinawa, after crashing an HH-60 helicopter at camp Hansen in Ginoza village in the Prefecture in 2013.

After the crash of a U.S. CH-53D helicopter in 2004 at a University in jinowan, Okinawa, which injured three crew members, the U.S. military effectively blocked the facility, and local police were unable to conduct an on-site inspection.

After part of the Northern training area near the last crash site was returned to Japan last December, several helipads were built near private land.

Local residents complained about the noise and expressed safety concerns as the U.S. military began operating Osprey aircraft there.

Japan times LTD. All rights reserved.