Parachute jumps over American base draw fresh protests from Okinawa leaders

Five military service members with parachutes, seen from below, descend to the ground.

U.S. service members conduct parachute training over Kadena Air Base, as seen from Kadena town, Okinawa, on Feb. 3, 2026. (Ryan M. Breeden/Stars and Stripes)

KADENA TOWN, Okinawa — Local leaders lodged complaints this week after U.S. forces carried out parachute training at Kadena Air Base for the first time since the primary offshore training site reopened late last year.

Eight troops jumped from a C-130 Hercules airlifter at 1 p.m. Tuesday over Kadena’s Ridout drop zone. A notice to airmen issued by the Federal Aviation Administration listed a training window from noon to 4 p.m. over the area.

The jump marked the first use of the Ridout zone since the Marine Corps reopened a runway in December on Ie Shima, a small island northwest of Okinawa that serves as the primary site for U.S. military parachute training.

Ie Shima had been closed for improvements from December 2023 through November. During that period, Kadena’s 18th Wing shifted parachute training to Ridout, drawing objections from Okinawa prefectural officials.

A military service member with a parachute, seen from a distance, descends to the ground, with a city skyline in the background.

A U.S. service member conducts parachute training over Kadena Air Base, as seen from Kadena town, Okinawa, on Feb. 3, 2026. (Ryan M. Breeden/Stars and Stripes)

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki, in Jan. 23 letters to the Okinawa Defense Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs office on Okinawa and the U.S. Consulate General in Naha, protested that with Ie Shima available again, parachute training at Kadena is no longer justified.

He asked the Air Force to adhere to a bilateral agreement designating Ie Shima as the primary drop location. The prefecture has complained that jump training at Kadena poses a danger to nearby communities.

Weather, sea conditions and other factors can limit Ie Shima’s availability, the wing said in an unsigned email Monday. Cargo drops are not authorized at Ridout, it added.

“When [Ie Shima] is unavailable or does not meet mission requirements, we use Ridout under the exceptional use clause to ensure our operators maintain mission-critical proficiency,” the wing said. It did not provide details about Tuesday’s training.

Kadena town Mayor Hiroshi Toyama, who heads the Trilateral Liaison Council that also includes Chatan town and Okinawa city, protested the training in a statement read to Stars and Stripes by phone Tuesday by a town base affairs spokesman.

The council cannot accept the training “based on a unilateral interpretation by the U.S. while the criteria and judgment for exceptional cases remain unclear,” he said, according to the spokesman.

Okinawa prefectural officials also objected. The prefecture asked the Okinawa Defense Bureau — part of Japan’s Ministry of Defense — to “urge the U.S. military not to conduct the training,” the prefecture’s Military Base Affairs Division wrote Friday on X.

The prefecture made the same request to the Okinawa Liaison Office of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to the Air Force, the division said in a follow-up post Tuesday.

Through the defense bureau, the prefecture requested information about the training but had received no response as of Tuesday, a base affairs division spokesman said by phone. Some Japanese government officials must speak to the media on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. military carried out nine parachute training events at Kadena in 2025, according to the prefecture.