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Old 27th Feb 2017, 10:45
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TOKYO —
Japan’s Defense Ministry has doubled the number of fighter jets scrambled in each response to foreign airplanes approaching its airspace on the back of China’s intensifying military activities around the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, government sources say.

Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force began scrambling four fighter jets since last year in each case of potential airspace violation by foreign aircraft, they said. The ASDF previously sent two jets in each scramble since it began such missions in 1958.

The number of scrambles by Japan and China has been surging in areas near the Japan-controlled, China-claimed Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture where the two countries’ air defense identification zones overlap. The two countries have yet to establish a communication mechanism to avoid any accidental aerial or maritime clash.

Between April last year and January, the number of scrambles Japan engaged in already eclipsed the annual record of 944 in fiscal 1984 when Soviet airplanes were active in the Cold War period. According to the sources, an increasing number of Chinese aircraft have been flying past the northern latitude of 27 degrees, which Japan sees as a defense line to keep Chinese planes out of the area between the latitude 25 and 26 degrees north where the Senkakus are located.

Of the four F-15 jets scrambled each time, two in the rear will be on alert to deal with approaches of additional aircraft. The ASDF has also extended the duration of a mission called combat air patrol and begun sending more E-2C early warning aircraft and a surveillance plane known as airborne early warning and control system, or AWACS, during a scramble.

In January last year, the Defense Ministry doubled the number of F-15s stationed at its base in Naha, Okinawa, to about 40, but more frequent scrambles and the increased number of fighter jets flown in each mission led to a shortage of jets on standby. To more flexibly operate aircraft, the air defense command in Tokyo has started controlling fighter jets across different regions, reviewing such rules as the minimum number of aircraft needed for standby at each composite air division.
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