The Ground Self-Defense Force announced Friday that Lt. Gen. Yuichi Sakamoto, the commanding general of the GSDF’s 8th Division, was one of the five people confirmed dead after a helicopter went down in waters off Okinawa’s Miyako Island with 10 aboard.
The announcement comes more than two weeks after the chopper crash.
In his position as commander of the GSDF’s 8th Division, Sakamoto had overseen troops responsible for defending Kumamoto, Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures. The division is one of the rapid deployment divisions that would be dispatched to Japan's southwestern islands in the event of a contingency.
Five people have officially been confirmed dead after the crash.
The GSDF has also identified two senior members of the 8th division — Col. Toru Niwata, 48, and Maj. Hiroki Koso, 34 — as among the dead.
The GSDF said Thursday that the head of its security unit based on Miyako Island was also among those who went missing in the helicopter crash.
It also announced that the head of the Miyako Area Security Unit, Masahito Iyota, was among those still missing.
Details of those who had gone missing had largely been unknown until recent days.
Ahead of the formal announcement of Sakamoto's death, the GSDF said it had appointed Shinichi Aoki as the new division commander.
Among the far-flung isles, Miyako Island sits around 210 kilometers from the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Beijing also claims the islets, which it calls the Diaoyu, and regularly sends government ships near the islands.
