Japanese fighters use flares during QRA intercept
September 24, 2024
On 23 September F-15J and F-35A fighter aircraft from the Japan Air Self-Defence Force’s Northern Air Defence Force were scrambled to intercept and escort a Russian Navy Ilyushin Il-38 ‘May’ maritime patrol aircraft that violated Japan’s airspace north of Rebun Island off Hokkaido. During a five-hour patrol in the area the Russian aircraft strayed into Japan’s airspace three times, flying above Rebun Island, just off the coast of Hokkaido – the northernmost of Japan’s main islands.
This was the first publicly announced airspace incursion by a Russian aircraft since June 2019, when a Russian Tupolev Tu-95 bomber violated Japanese airspace in southern Okinawa and around the Izu Islands off Tokyo. There have also been a number of airspace violations by Chinese aircraft.
The Il-38 is believed to have been operating in connection with the Ocean 2024 naval exercise which saw Russian and Chinese warships operating together in the Sea of Japan from 16 September 2024, and whose participants sailed around the Japanese northern coast the day before the incursion.
There are real tensions between Japan and Russia, who have a long-running territorial dispute over the Northern Territories, a group of Russian-held islands that the former Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of the second world war, and which has prevented the two nations from ever signing a peace treaty that would formally end hostilities! Russia is angry at Japan’s support for Ukraine, which has included financial and material support and has seen Tokyo imposing sanctions against Russian individuals and organisations.
One interesting aspect of the latest interception was the use of flares by the Japanese fighters, in an effort to warn off the Russian maritime reconnaissance aircraft, after warnings transmitted by radio were ignored. Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said that the use of flares was a legitimate response to the airspace violation and warned that: “we plan to use it without hesitation.”
Japan lodged a ‘strong protest’ with Moscow. Japan’s defence minister, Minoru Kihara said that: “The airspace violation is extremely regrettable and today we lodged a very serious protest with the Russian government via diplomatic channels and strongly urged them to prevent a recurrence.”
The Japan Air Self-Defence Force is fully prepared to respond to enemy air threats, maintaining aircraft on Quick Reaction alert 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, “to protect our nation’s territory and the peaceful lives of our people,” the MoD says. The JASDF
has said that it scrambled fighters 669 times between April 2023 and March 2024, 70% of these scrambles being against Chinese military aircraft.
Fighters were scrambled from the Northern Air Defense Force when an airspace violation in the Sea of Okhotsk seemed imminent, and from the Western Air Defense Force, when another violation seemed likely in the East China Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Sea of Japan.
Earlier in September, a Russian military aircraft flew around southern Japanese airspace, but did not violate it. A Chinese Y-9 reconnaissance aircraft briefly violated Japan’s southern airspace in late August.
