JAPANESE CITIZENS USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO KEEP TABS ON US WARPLANES

As US military aircraft fly the Japanese skies freely for drills and transfers without prior warning or regard for the time of day, not even the Japanese government has a clear idea of what kind of activity the aircraft are engaging in, Mainichi Shimbun reported. 

Now, the public has taken matters into their own hands by sharing information about US military aircraft on social media. An example are Twitter posts with the hashtag, "#OH Alert," whose primary contributions are provided by members of the public living in Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, where US military aircraft fly the skies on a daily basis. Approximately 70% of the total land area exclusively used by US military facilities in Japan lies in Okinawa. 

Some examples are tweets such as "It's probably a large helicopter. Circling super low, right above a residential area in Ginoza Village. #OH Alert" and "Probably an Osprey. It went back to Futenma. My windows shook hard and it scared me. 22:43 #OH Alert," which provide information on the flight activity of US military aircraft. Attached to some posts are footage that people took themselves of aircraft activity. 

The "OH Alert" project began in February 2018. At the time, Okinawa Prefecture had seen a spate of accidents and other problems with US military aircraft. In December 2017, a part from a US aircraft was discovered on the roof of a child day care center near US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the city of Ginowan, and just six days later, a window from a US military aircraft fell onto the schoolyard of an elementary school located right next to the Futenma base. In January 2018, there were three crash landings by US military aircraft in various areas of Okinawa Prefecture, and prefectural residents' distrust toward the US military intensified.