The reported violations are related to members of the United States Marine Corps unit, at Iwakuni air station, who were involved in a fatal plane crash in front of Shikoku in December 2018.
The F / A- fighter jet 18 of the Marine Corps carried out a night air resupply mission and crashed in the Pacific Ocean, with six people on board.
A recent US military report revealed that pilots used to take off their oxygen masks, read books or take selfies with both hands out of the controls during flights.
Japanese Defense Minister Tomohiro Yamamoto and the governor of Yamaguchi Prefecture, Tsugumasa Muraoka, cataloged the acts as scandalous and asked for comprehensive safety measures, including pilot education, as well as maintaining discipline.
Yamamoto said the ministry has repeatedly asked US forces to ensure that security is their top priority, and will continue to call for security controls to be thoroughly implemented.
For his part, the governor also made a request about the ministry’s plan to deploy a land missile interceptor system known as Aegis Ashore in its prefecture.
It is not the first time that this air unit is involved in a fatal accident, at the Kadena base in Okinawa prefecture on April 28, 2016, an F / A-18 fighter jet hit a tanker and made contact with the fuel hose.
