Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2014 February 19 - 25 [US FORCES]

US military repeatedly conducts flight drills in western Japan

U.S. military aircraft have repeatedly conducted low-altitude flight training exercises above the mountainous Chugoku region in western Japan imposing extreme noise pollution on the local residents.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Shiokawa Tetsuya on February 18 at a House budget committee meeting took up the issue of the U.S. military flight drills which were taking place in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces’ training airspace in Hiroshima and Shimane prefectures.

The Defense Ministry in reply to Shiokawa said that the U.S. conducted flight drills 261 times, including low-altitude training flights, in the airspace during the period between February 2013 and January 2014.

Shiokawa also asked the government about the level of noise of military jets in the area.

The Defense Ministry replied that its noise measurements in Hiroshima’s Kitahiroshima Town detected loud noise 254 times in five months from September last year, with 50 recorded after 7 p.m., the noise level reaching up to 102.2 dB. Another noise measurement made in Shimane’s Hamada City recorded excessive noise 197 times during the same period with 54 detected after 7 p.m., and the highest noise level reaching 102.6 dB.

JCP Shiokawa said that 100 dB is equal to the noise under a railway track while a train passes overhead. Pointing to the fact that the local residents are suffering from excessive noise of the military jets, he stressed, “It is in Japan’s territory the flight drills are taking place. Don’t you think that the Japanese government should say ‘No’ to the U.S. military?”

Defense Minister Onodera Itsunori showed his approval for the low-altitude flight training exercises by saying that it is a matter of normal U.S. military operations.