A Chinese surveillance military aircraft entered Japan’s airspace off the Danjo islands in Nagasaki prefecture.
Japan’s top government spokesperson said Tuesday a Chinese military aircraft had briefly entered Japanese airspace the day before, calling the incident an “absolutely unacceptable” territorial violation.
A Y-9 surveillance aircraft breached Japanese airspace for about two minutes from 11.29am on Monday, Japan’s defence ministry said.
The ministry said the aircraft “violated the territorial airspace off the Danjo islands in Nagasaki prefecture”, prompting Japan to scramble “fighter jets on an emergency basis”.
The incursion was a “serious violation of sovereignty”, Japan’s chief government spokesperson said on Tuesday, calling it a first for a Chinese military aircraft.
“The violation of our airspace by Chinese military aircraft is not only a serious violation of our sovereignty but also a threat to our security and is totally unacceptable,” Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.
The defence ministry released a photograph of what it said was the plane, which reportedly circled above waters southeast of the islands multiple times before and after entering Japan’s airspace, Kyodo news agency said. It headed back towards China at about 1:15 pm.
