Senior Airman Christopher Burkins marshalls an E-3 Sentry assigned to the 961st Airborne Air Control Squadron at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Jan. 17, 2024. (Luis E. Rios Calderon/U.S. Air Force)
A weekend jet fuel spill at the 18th Wing’s home on Okinawa was contained and cleaned up, the Air Force said Wednesday, but not before rain washed some toward a marina used by base residents.
“Kadena Air Base responded to an on-base fuel spill during an equipment test on an E-3 Sentry,” the 18th Wing’s public affairs office told Stars and Stripes in an unsigned email. “Rainwater washed approximately 50 gallons of fuel into an outflow that led to the Kadena Marina.”
The marina is home to diving, snorkeling and whale-watching boat trips, along with personal watercraft, according to the Kadena Force Support Squadron’s website.
The spilled fuel did not flow toward the Hija River, according to the wing’s email. It said the incident was reported through proper channels after the fuel was contained and cleaned up.
The U.S. military discovered the spill Saturday during a post-maintenance inspection on the Sentry, according to a Tuesday post on X, formerly Twitter, by the island prefecture’s Base Countermeasures Division.
Some fuel flowed into a stormwater drain, the division said.
The prefecture has asked the Okinawa Defense Bureau — an arm of Japan’s Ministry of Defense — to urge the U.S. military to implement preventative measures, a spokesman for the prefecture’s Environment Division said by phone Tuesday.
“We carried out visual investigations at six sites in the rivers surrounding Kadena Air Base yesterday and detected no contamination or odors,” he said.
Japanese government officials are often required to speak to the media only on condition of anonymity.
E-3s — commonly called AWACS, or airborne warning and control systems — can hold about 21,000 gallons of fuel, according to the Air Force.
Kadena’s E-3s are assigned to the 961st Airborne Air Control Squadron. The unit gathers information that visiting forces can use to maneuver throughout the Indo-Pacific region, the wing said in a news release on June 29, 2022.
