Error at CIA-owned facility contributed to ’59 school tragedy, current USAF website plays down casualties, plays up military relief

Residents extinguish fires caused by the crash of a USAF F-100D jet into their community on 30 June 1959.

On 30 June 1959, a USAF F-100D fighter jet took off from Kadena Air Base and crashed into Miyamori Elementary School and the neighboring community in Ishikawa, current day Uruma City. It was the worst aircraft accident in pre-Reversion Okinawa, killing 18 people, including 12 pupils.

Now, records reviewed by Okinawa Times reveal that a maintenance error at a CIA-owned facility was one of the underlying causes of the crash. According to the USAF official investigation, the aircraft had been taken to the Air America Inc. maintenance facility in Tainan, Taiwan, where workers had removed parts of the jet’s engine but then failed to properly reinstall them. Two USAF commanders identified the error as “a contributing cause” of the accident, including the Commander of the 18th Tactical Fighter Wing, Colonel Francis R. Royal, who determined, “The stage for the Ishikawa Tragedy had been set by poor maintenance and quality control procedures at the Air America, Inc., modification center at Tainan.”

Records declassified by the CIA state that Air America Inc. was the largest of the agency’s so-called “proprietaries” – companies “which ostensibly appear to be private, but which are owned by the CIA.” The headquarters of Air America Inc. were located in Washington DC and its field headquarters were in Taipei, Taiwan. During the Cold War, Air America ran covert operations in Asia, and, at its facility in Tainan, it conducted maintenance work for the US military, particularly the USAF. According to the CIA, this work was “normally a money-maker” and the agency earned high profits on its repair contracts with the USAF.

The Tainan facility had formerly been a Japanese military air base that was taken over by the CIA in 1949; by the mid-1950s, it employed some 1000 personnel. Air America Inc. also had a strong presence in pre-Reversion Okinawa where its subsidiary, Scheduled Air Services Ryukyus, operated regular passenger and cargo flights between Naha, and outlying islands, including Miyako and Ishigaki from 1964 to 1967.

Official Kadena Air Base history ignores residents’ deaths, omits causes of accident

Today, the official online history of Kadena Air Base contains inaccurate information about the number of victims and omits the cause of the crash, instead emphasizing USAF recovery work.

As of 2 July 2024, the three-line description on the Kadena Air Base homepage states: “30 June 1959 - An 18th Tactical Fighter Wing F-100D aircraft crashed into the Miyamori Elementary School, Ishikawa. Eleven students died and 200 received injuries. The Air Force was instrumental in response and recovery operations.”

The description omits the six residents who were killed in the accident and one more student, Arakaki Akira, who died at the age of 23 from injuries sustained as a young boy, bringing the official death toll to 18. The actual number of injured was 210. Moreover, the online description fails to mention the series of mistakes which caused the crash and the fact that, although multiple service members were to blame, the military opted not to punish any of those at fault.

Kudaka Masaharu, chairman of the NPO established to remember the victims, reacted angrily to the USAF inaccuracies. "Residents were killed too. This minimizes [the accident] as if there had been no such wrongdoing. We strongly protest." His organization was named "Ishikawa Miyamori 630 Kai" to recognize that residents of Ishikawa had suffered as well as the school’s students. Kudaka demanded that the USAF correct the description.

Okinawa Times has contacted Kadena Air Base to point out its homepage’s mistakes and enquire whether it now intends to correct them.

 

 

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Additional reporting by Abe Takashi.