2010 August 25 - 31 [
SDF]
ASDF acrobatic flight improper for a sports festa
|
August 27 & 29, 201
The Japanese Communist Party Chiba City Assembly members group on August 27 made representations to City Mayor Kumagai Toshihiko to cancel the planned acrobatic flight demonstration by the Air Self-Defense Force at the 65th National Sports Festival in Chiba Prefecture.
The ASDF Blue Impulse flight team, with six T-4 jets, is planning to hold an acrobatic show over a baseball stadium during the festival’s opening ceremony on September 25. High-rise apartment buildings, hotels, many office buildings, and shopping malls are around that area.
The group pointed out that the Blue Impulse team has caused several accidents, including fatal one, and stated, “It is too dangerous to conduct acrobatic flights over a civilian audience and the armed-force’s PR activity should have no place in a peaceful sports event.”
On August 25, the JCP Chiba Prefectural Assembly members group made similar representations to Governor Morita Kensaku. The group stated, “The acrobatic flight show involves steep climbing and gliding turns to show off ASDF combat skills, and that’s not appropriate to a sports festival.”
Blue Impulse, assuming its mission to advertise and publicize the ASDF, has had accidents, killing one pilot and injuring 12 civilians in 1982, and crashing two aircraft and killing one pilot in 1991 and 2000, respectively.
- Akahata, August 27 & 29, 2010
