South Korean military plane entering defence zone ‘regrettable’: Japan
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TOKYO - Japan’s top government spokesman said on July 25 that it is “regrettable” that the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) were forced to scramble fighter jets after a South Korean military airplane entered the Japanese air defence identification zone without notice earlier in July.
Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a press conference that the government has asked South Korea to take measures to prevent similar incidents, while calling Seoul an important partner with which Tokyo will continue to closely collaborate.
On July 24, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that Japan’s SDF fighters scrambled to deal with a South Korean C-130 transport aircraft after it accidentally entered Japan’s air defence identification zone on July 13.
The C-130 initially intended to overfly Japanese territory for a military exercise in Guam, but it failed to obtain the Japanese authorities’ permission in advance due to insufficient communication.
The plane subsequently took a flight course to avoid Japan.
Bad weather and the need for refuelling forced the airplane to change the route again and make an emergency landing at the US military’s Kadena Air Base in the southern Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, triggering the SDF’s response, Yonhap reported.
An air defence identification zone is a wider area than sovereign airspace and is defined by each country for national security purposes. KYODO NEWS
