TOKYO-Narita Airport has finally opened, despite the protests of local residents and farmers, whose land had been seized for it, and their thousands of supporters all over Japan. The unfinished airport, badly planned from the start, is proving to be every bit as noisy, inconvenient, and dangerous as the opposition movement has always claimed it would be. The ill-fated facility has already had to close unexpectedly twice since opening day May 20, due to fog in one case and because two balloons were flown at the end of the runway in the other. But what is alarming is that the safety of the flight paths to and from Narita has been seriously called into question.
The Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun reported on June 14 that there had been two "near miss" incidents over Narita only ten days after the opening. They both involved passenger jets taking off from the new airport and intruding into Haneda airspace. (Haneda, the former international airport serving Tokyo, is now used only for domestic flights and China [Taiwan] Airlines international flights.) There has been another similar incident since that report.
These close encounters cannot be dismissed lightly as mere
"teething troubles" —as were some of the other problems that have so far disrupted operations. (Passengers being stranded for hours due to airport buses not being available, and the door of one of the boarding tunnels dropping off and crashing to the ground are two examples.) These near misses are inevitable given the crowding of airspace in the skies over Tokyo, and are certainly the first of many to come.
Narita is situated between two other airports-Haneda and the ASDF [Air Self- Defense Force] jet fighter base at Hyakuri. Its airspace had to be squeezed in between theirs, and in one area, aircraft from all three facilities must fly over one another. This is one of the inherent faults of this airport. Despite the assurances of government and Transport Ministry officials, pilots claim that it is impossible to observe the specified flight paths exactly. Many Japanese recall the incident in 1971 when an ASDF jet fighter on a training flight collided with a Tokyo-bound passenger jet, killing all on board. That incident took place in clear blue skies. The risks involved in having high-speed fighters maneuvering. near a commercial airport are obvious, and the planes at Hyakuri are on permanent standby to "scramble."
The problems of navigation at Narita are extreme. Approach requires many more turns and course adjustments than is usual at international airports, and takeoff requires a steep climb above the Hyakuri area, but it must not be so steep as to intrude into Haneda airspace above. These requirements put a great strain on flight personnel, and Narita has been heavily criticized by both Japanese and foreign pilots.
Unlike Haneda, Narita is not equipped with the latest ARTS-J radar system, which indicates the altitude, ground speed, and other information about aircraft on the radar screen, and makes the work of air traffic controllers much easier. At the "new" airport, staff have to obtain such information by radio from each airplane. Claiming this gives them less time to concentrate on other things, Narita air traffic controllers have requested the ARTS-J system, but the Transport Ministry claims that there isn't enough traffic at the new airport to justify it. This shows how far the authorities are prepared to compromise on safety, despite all the talk about "safety at any price" when they were beefing up security and repressing the airport opponents and workers' organizations.
Another inherent danger is that the three airports have no centralized airtraffic control system, as at, for example, New York. Transport Ministry officials say that when Narita was designed they did not possess the necessary technology, but now that they do, such a system is not needed. Nevertheless, they have installed a telephone "hot line" in case of emergency.
Air traffic controllers at Narita now bleakly refer to the area around the airport as Ma no kuuiki, which loosely translates as "Devil's Area." The name comes from a legendary strait where ships disappeared without trace—a Japanese "Bermuda Triangle."
On June 14 Narita Airport disappeared without a trace as a thick fog settled over the area. The airport was forced to close, and a total of seventeen flights were redirected to Haneda, where passengers had to sit around for up to eight hours while immigration and customs officials rushed over from Narita by car. The last passengers cleared immigration at 4 a.m. This wasn't an isolated incident either. Narita, along with the whole Sanrizuka area, is very prone to dense fog-eleven times as frequently as the Tokyo Bay (Haneda) area in fact. Crosswinds are also going to close Narita, as it has only one runway.
At present, affected flights are being diverted to Haneda, but this will not always be possible. In the future, passengers may find themselves having to travel to Tokyo from airports as far away as Osaka, Fukuoka, or Sendai.
Narita is totally inadequate to serve as an international airport, but the Fukuda government was faced with a dilemma. The strong opposition movement had already delayed the opening for five years, in addition to putting the construction schedule way behind. The government desperately needed to restore business confidence in its ability to force through development projects-especially against popular opposition movements. The Sanrizuka struggle had become the focus and inspiration for hundreds of similar protest campaigns, against nuclear power plants, U.S. and Self-Defense Forces bases, polluting industries, and so forth. They had to defeat the growing opposition, and in the face of rapidly declining popularity, Fukuda had to do it quickly, even if the airport was not complete.
However, the opening has not demobilized the opposition, as Fukuda hoped. On the contrary, many residents in the area who had been satisfied with the government's promises about noise are angrythe airport is much noisier than they had been led to believe, and the soundproofing of their homes which the government provided is inadequate. According to television reporters, many of these residents have declared their intention to oppose the second stage of construction.
To complete the airport, the authorities need to obtain land belonging to seventeen farmers who are all staunch supporters of the Anti-Airport League. They managed to get enough land for the first stage only by violently and forcibly evicting the farmers and demolishing their homes. These evictions were carried out by thousands of riot police and Airport Corporation officials. Pitched battles raged for days, and hundreds of farmers and their supporters were injured and arrested. Now the eyes of the world are on Narita and the government is naturally reluctant to stage a repeat performance of those bloody scenes. It seems increasingly unlikely that the airport will ever be completed.
Demonstrations against the airport have been continuing, with a torchlight procession around the perimeter on June 10. It was during this demonstration that the balloons were flown at the end of the runway, closing the airport for two hours and disrupting several cargo flights.
This torchlight procession marked the start of the Opposition League's "100 days of protest," which they intend as an intensive period of struggle, propaganda and rallies.
On July 1, a funeral rally for Niiyama Yukio was held. This young man was a member of the Japan Revolutionary Communist League and one of the demonstrators who took part in the action that postponed the previously scheduled opening on March 26. During this incident, after his clothing accidentally caught fire, he was beaten unconscious and arrested by riot police. Despite his serious injuries, he was kept in custody for more than four hours before being released for medical treatment. He died in the hospital after fighting for his life for eighty days.
The next day, a rally and demonstration attended by some 15,000 persons was held. Demonstrators marched to the airport
Narita Airspace
Narita Airport where they were confronted by 10,000 riot police.
The airport, in fact, still resembles a martial-law zone, with thousands of riot police and security personnel permanently on duty. The government has always tried to divert attention from the airport's inherent defects by pretending that attacks by "terrorist groups" or "radical elements" are the main problem.
No matter how often they may assure the public that Narita is an improvement over the old airport, they obviously don't believe it. Japanese and foreign VIPs, including members of the emperor's family who visited Brazil recently, continue to use
Haneda. When Foreign Minister Sonoda flew in to Narita recently, a personal helicopter was used to save him the threehour journey to Tokyo.
The priority for the movement in the near future is to defend the protesters arrested and awaiting trial at present. The defendants are demanding to be tried together, but Chiba District Court, which has been handling most of the cases, claims that it is at capacity and is trying to send defendants to other courts in Tokyo. It is important to mobilize international support against the charges the defendants face, and to demand their immediate release.