Japan GSDF Helicopter Crash Sparks Disinformation Wave

A Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) helicopter crashed into the sea off Okinawa Prefecture’s Miyako Island on April 6, with 10 service members on board. All are presumed dead, although search and recovery operations were still underway as of writing.

The JGSDF has said that the UH-60JA Black Hawk vanished from radar screens around 3:56 p.m. on April 6 near the island, just 10 minutes after taking off from the service’s Camp Miyakojima to surveil nearby land features. The chopper is made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan under license from Sikorsky Aircraft, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary.

Those aboard the helicopter included Lt. Gen. Sakamoto Yuichi, the 55-year-old commander of the JGSDF’s 8th Division based in Kumamoto Prefecture on Kyushu Island. Sakamoto had just been appointed to this regional leader position on March 30.

The importance of the 8th Division has increased tremendously in recent years. It is positioned not only as one of the 15 JGSDF divisions and brigades across the nation, but also as one of the “rapid deployment divisions” that are expected to be deployed flexibly to the front lines in times of emergency, especially in Japan's southwestern Nansei Island chain, including Miyako Island. The chain also includes the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, which are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China. It is close to Taiwan.

The Ministry of Defense in Tokyo said it is customary for any new division commander, such as Sakamoto, to carry out an inspection tour of an area of responsibility soon after assuming their position.

The crash happened at a delicate time of renewed tensions between China and Taiwan. On April 6, the Japanese Defense Ministry confirmed China had deployed its Shandong aircraft carrier in the Western Pacific for the first time.

It was part of Beijing’s response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's stopover visit to the United States. On April 5, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met with Tsai in California.

Amid the Chinese military maneuvers that followed, China’s first domestically built carrier passed through the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines and not through the strategically important Miyako Strait – between Okinawa Island and Miyako – which Chinese naval ships have often used.

But a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 815/Dongdiao-class electronic intelligence gathering ship (pennant number 851) was spotted passing through the Miyako Strait on April 6, the same day the JGSDF helicopter crashed.

Without the cause of the helicopter crash still under investigation, conspiracy theories that China shot down the chopper have been spreading online.

However, the Ministry of Defense has repeatedly and clearly denied such conspiracy theories by stressing the fact that the Chinese electronic intelligence gathering ship passed through the Miyako Strait in the early hours of April 6, significantly before the time of the crash, thus emphasizing that China had nothing to do with the helicopter’s downing.

Objectively, there is no evidence of military attacks against the helicopter from other countries, whether by means of missiles, drones, electromagnetic waves, or sabotage.

In his latest article for Yahoo! News, University of Tokyo Professor Toriumi Fujio, an expert on social media and other related fields, explained characteristics of those Twitter accounts that “suspect the cause of the crash is other than accidental.” Many of them are conservatives and supporters of Takaichi Sanae, the minister of state for economic security and a veteran conservative Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, along with many accounts that have already spread skeptical tweets about vaccine effectiveness since 2022. Both characteristics recall the radical supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

In order to wipe out such conspiracy theorists, the flight recorder of the accident aircraft should be retrieved from the sea as soon as possible to investigate the real cause of the accident.