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\n Operations resume at Naha Airport, Okinawa, Aug. 19, 2026, a day after a landing mishap by a Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighter jet closed one of the two runways for four hours. (Keishi Koja\/Stars and Stripes)
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NAHA, Okinawa \u2014 An equipment failure on a Japanese fighter jet closed one of the Naha Airport runways for several hours this week, delaying more than 40 commercial flights, according to Japanese officials.<\/p>\n
The F-15J Eagle\u2019s landing gear apparently failed as it touched down on runway B shortly before 1 p.m. Tuesday, a Japan Air Self-Defense spokesman said by phone Wednesday. The aircraft\u2019s left wing contacted the runway before the fighter rolled to a stop, he said. <\/p>\n
The pilot was not injured. The extent of the fighter\u2019s damage is still being confirmed, the spokesman said. <\/p>\n
The incident forced airport officials to close the runway for approximately four hours while emergency crews responded and the aircraft was removed, a Naha Airport official said by phone Wednesday. <\/p>\n
The closure delayed 40 commercial flights, the airport spokesman said. Some flights were delayed by more than 30 minutes. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the removal was completed, we cleaned the area, conducted safety inspections and reopened the runway,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Naha Airport serves both civilian aircraft and the Air Self-Defense Force\u2019s 9th Air Wing. The wing\u2019s F-15 squadrons are responsible for air defense around Japan\u2019s Nansei islands. <\/p>\n
The scrambled aircraft was returning from a mission when the incident occurred, said the Self-Defense Force spokesman, who declined to provide details. Japanese fighters often sortie to intercept Chinese aircraft flying close to Japanese air space. <\/p>\n
About 440 commercial flights normally pass through Naha Airport each day, making it one of Japan\u2019s busiest airports and the primary commercial gateway to Okinawa, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. <\/p>\n
The airport has two runways, one for takeoff and the other for landing. \u201cWe had to conduct all the operations on one runway during the closure,\u201d the airport spokesman said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe aircraft was lifted by a crane, placed onto a container, and transported,\u201d the Self-Defense spokesman said. The cause of the mishap remains under investigation. <\/p>\n
He declined to comment on whether the fighters would be grounded after the incident. \u201cI can only say that future flights are under consideration,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Some Japanese government officials may speak to the media only on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Operations resume at Naha Airport, Okinawa, Aug. 19, 2026, a day after a landing mishap by a Japan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7041,49176,8,3029,49181,33,162],"class_list":["post-76617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-airport","tag-f-15j-eagle","tag-japan","tag-japan-air-self-defense-force","tag-mishap","tag-nihon","tag-okinawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}