Japan Scrambles Military Aircraft 669 Times in FY2023

In September, a Russian military plane violated Japanese airspace three times off the coast of Hokkaidō. In response, Air Self-Defense Force fighters scrambled and fired warning flares in an unprecedented move. In August, the first confirmed airspace violation by a Chinese military aircraft also occurred off the coast of Nagasaki Prefecture.

From 1967 to 2023, there were a total of 46 violations of Japanese airspace officially recognized by the Ministry of Defense. The vast majority were committed by Soviet/Russian aircraft, with a total of 43 incidents, including those where the nationality was presumed. Among the two violations by Chinese aircraft, one occurred over the Senkaku Islands in 2012, involving a propeller-driven aircraft operated by China’s State Oceanic Administration, while the other occurred in 2017, involving a small, unmanned aircraft.

According to the MOD, Air SDF aircraft were scrambled 669 times during fiscal 2023. From the end of the Cold War in the 1990s to around 2010, aircraft were scrambled around 100 to 300 times per year, but this level shot up to over 700 times per year during the period from 2013 to the present.

Among the cases where Air SDF aircraft were scrambled, 72% (479 cases) were in response to Chinese aircraft, followed by the 26% (174 cases) involving Russian aircraft and 2% involving some other nation or region; this includes presumptions about the nationality of aircraft. According to the MOD, fiscal 2023 saw numerous cases involving Chinese planes. This is seen as an indication of the expansion and increased activity of the country’s aircraft, including a series of flights between the islands of Okinawa and Miyakojima, joint long-range flights by Chinese and Russian bombers, flights by unmanned Chinese aircraft between Yonagunijima and Taiwan, and the first confirmed flights of such craft in the Sea of Japan.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo: Russian Il-38 patrol aircraft that violated Japanese airspace off Hokkaidō on September 23, 2024; courtesy of the Ministry of Defense Joint Staff. © Jiji.)