Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2015 February 25 - March 3 [US FORCES]

2,400 noise pollution incidents caused by US military aircraft during low-altitude flight drills last year in Shimane

U.S. military aircraft’s low-altitude flight training exercises caused noise nuisances 2,400 times last year in the western region of Shimane Prefecture which lies along the Japan Sea.

The U.S. military in 2014 conducted flight training exercises, including low-altitude training, in the air space over Shimane’s western area and some areas in Hiroshima and Yamaguchi prefectures. In the flight training drills, U.S. military airplanes always emitted noise levels of 70dB, equal to the noise which forces people to speak louder in conversations, and 100dB, equivalent to the noise under a railway underpass while a train passes over head.

Sound measuring devices that the Shimane prefecture placed in its five municipalities under the training air space recorded noise levels exceeding 70dB 2,399 times. In November, the level of noise from U.S. military aircraft reached 70dB a record 85 times in a single exercise.

An owner of a private child-care center in Hamada City, one of the five municipalities affected, said, “Scared by the roar of U.S. military airplanes, children began crying out in terror.” When she saw U.S. military aircraft flying over the city, she called on the children to go inside and wait until the aircraft flew past.

A group of governors in the Chugoku region in June 2014 issued an appeal demanding a halt to the U.S. flight training drills disturbing people’s peaceful lives. Four months later, the governor and leaders of the five municipalities in Shimane visited the ministries of defense and foreign affairs to make the same demand.

Japanese Communist Party members of the Shimane Prefectural Assembly repeatedly took up the noise pollution issue caused by the U.S. military aircraft. In February, the JCP prefectural assembly members’ group and JCP Dietmember Ohira Yoshinobu made representations to the two ministries in protest against the noise pollution.


Past related article:
> US military repeatedly conducts flight drills in western Japan [February 19, 2014]