Aircraft incident briefly shutters shared military-civilian runway in Japan

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan — An aircraft incident shut the runway at this U.S. base south of Hiroshima for nearly an hour Tuesday, disrupting commercial flights that share the airfield, U.S. and Japanese officials said.

The air station’s Air Rescue and Firefighting unit responded to an incident involving an aircraft on the flight line, MCAS Iwakuni spokesman Maj. Mason Englehart said by email Wednesday.

“Pilot and aircraft have been safely recovered, and the airfield has resumed normal operations,” he wrote.

The air station provided no further information about the aircraft, including its type or military affiliation, or what caused the incident.

The runway was closed from 11:04 a.m. to 11:48 a.m., a spokesman for the Chugoku-Shikoku Defense Bureau said by phone Wednesday. The bureau is an arm of Japan’s Defense Ministry.

Three All Nippon Airways flights were delayed, diverted or canceled because of the closure, an ANA spokeswoman said by phone Wednesday.

ANA operates 42 domestic flights per week from Iwakuni, according to FlightConnections.com.

The defense bureau spokesman provided no additional details. Some Japanese spokespeople must speak to the media without revealing their identities.

MCAS Iwakuni operates a single runway shared by U.S. military, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and commercial aircraft.

The base is home to the Navy’s Carrier Air Wing 5, the air component of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which is homeported at Yokosuka Naval Base south of Tokyo.