Japan Air Lines Flight 351

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Not to be confused with Japan Air Lines Flight 350.

Japan Air Lines Flight 351
Japan Air Lines
RegistrationJA8315
Flight originTokyo International Airport
DestinationFukuoka Airport
Occupants138 (including 9 hijackers)
Passengers131 (including 9 hijackers)
Crew7
Fatalities0
Injuries0
Survivors138 (including 9 hijackers)

Japan Air Lines Flight 351 was a scheduled passenger flight from

Tokyo Haneda Airport to Fukuoka that was hijacked by members of the Red Army Faction of the Japan Communist League on March 31, 1970,[1] in an incident usually referred to in Japanese as the Yodogo Hijacking Incident (よど号ハイジャック事件, Yodogō Haijakku Jiken).[2]

Background

The aircraft involved in the hijacking in 1988 while in service with Hapag-Lloyd Flug.

In 1966, the

Kansai faction" of the Second Bund, based out of Doshisha University in Kyoto and led by Kyoto University philosophy major dropout Takaya Shiomi (塩見孝也, Shiomi Takaya), comprised the far left wing of the already far-left Second Bund.[4] Around June 1968, the Kansai faction began calling itself the "Red Army Faction," and began making plans for a violent uprising in Japan, originally intended to coincide with the 1970 Anpo protests
.

The main theory of the Red Army Faction was that by first carrying out a successful armed proletarian revolution in Japan, Japan would become the headquarters of a worldwide revolution against the United States of America and its allies, and the Red Army Faction would become the leaders of that revolution.[5]

Finding the rest of the Second Bund unamenable to the cause of immediate armed revolution, the Red Army Faction signaled its open split from its parent organization in 1969. On September 5, Takaya and other Red Army Faction members publicly appeared at Hibiya Public Hall in Tokyo to declare the independence of the Red Army Faction from the Communist League and announce the start of an immediate armed revolution.[6]

In early 1970, Shiomi began making plans to hijack a Japanese airliner, codenamed "Operation Phoenix," that would allow group members to fly to Cuba and continue their training. However, just before the hijacking could take place, Shiomi was arrested by chance on the street in Komagome, Tokyo on March 15, 1970, having been mistaken for a common thief.[7] Nevertheless, the remaining hijackers pressed on with their plans; on March 31, 1970, nine members of the Red Army Faction, armed with katana swords and a homemade bomb, hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 351, a domestic Japan Airlines Boeing 727 out of Tokyo International Airport carrying 129 other people aboard.

Hijacking

Approximately 20 minutes after takeoff, a young man named Takamaro Tamiya got up from his seat, drew a

Gimpo Airport in Seoul, South Korea, where they had disguised the airport as being North Korean.[9] Despite this, the hijackers quickly realised that they had been tricked, and Japan's Vice Minister for Transport, Shinjiro Yamamura, volunteered to take the place of the remaining hostages, and the hijackers accepted his offer.[10] They then proceeded to Pyongyang's Mirim Airport, with Yamamura now as hostage, where they surrendered to North Korean authorities, who offered the whole group asylum.[11][12]

Using North Korea as a base, they sought to incite rebellion in South Korea and elsewhere across East Asia.[citation needed] The plane carrying Vice Minister Yamamura and the remainder of the crew was released two days later[13] and returned to its gate at Haneda Airport at 9:39 am on April 5.[14]

Later events

The alleged mastermind of the hijacking, Takaya Shiomi, was tried, convicted, and served almost 20 years in prison in Japan. After his release in 1989,[15][16] suffering from poor health, Shiomi obtained a low paid[15] job as an attendant at a multi-level parking facility in Kiyose, Tokyo, where he was working as late as 2008.[17] He said that they had intended to go to Cuba via North Korea.[18] He joined an antibase movement in Okinawa and an antinuclear campaign, and wrote several books related to the Red Army Faction.[16] In April 2015, he ran in the city assembly elections in Kiyose, campaigning on an anti-Abe platform and against the city's policies which he said were "bullying" the elderly.[15] He died on November 14, 2017, of heart failure at a Tokyo hospital.[16]

Moriaki Wakabayashi was an early member (bass player) in the long-running avant-garde rock band Les Rallizes Dénudés. In a March 2010 interview with Kyodo News, Wakabayashi stated that the hijacking was a "selfish and conceited" act. Wakabayashi added that he wished to return to Japan and was willing to face arrest and trial for his role in the hijacking.[19] In April 2014 he was still alive, and residing in North Korea together with other members of his group.[20]

In 1985, Yasuhiro Shibata returned to Japan in secret to raise money for the group, was arrested, and was sentenced to five years in prison.

National Police Agency.[21]

The leader of the group, Takamaro Tamiya, died in 1995 and Kintaro Yoshida sometime before 1985. Takeshi Okamoto and his wife Kimiko Fukudome were probably killed trying to flee North Korea.[22] Takahiro Konishi, Shiro Akagi, Kimihuro Uomoto and Moriaki Wakabayashi still reside in North Korea; all except Takeshi Okamoto were confirmed to have been alive as of 2004 when they were interviewed by Kyodo News. In June 2004, the remaining hijackers made a request to North Korean authorities that they be allowed to return to Japan, even if they are to be punished for the hijacking.[21]

Notable passengers

The future

physicians and educators.[24] One of the two American passengers was a regional director for Pepsi.[25]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ "Annual Report 2011 Review and Prospect of Internal and External Situations" (PDF). Public Security Intelligence Agency JAPAN. January 2012. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 13, 2021.
  2. ^ "日本赤軍及び「よど号」グループの動向" [Trends of the Japanese Red Army and the "Yodo-go" group]. www.npa.go.jp (in Japanese).
  3. ^ Kapur 2022, p. 17.
  4. ^ Andrews 2016, p. 124.
  5. ^ Andrews 2016, pp. 124–125.
  6. ^ Steinhoff 1989, p. 727.
  7. ^ Andrews 2016, p. 127.
  8. ^ Martínez, Layla (December 1, 2021). "Acabar con la música para siempre" [Ending music forever]. elsaltodiario.com (in Spanish). Retrieved January 31, 2022.
  9. ^ "Hijacked Airliner Still in S. Korea— Seoul Rigged to Look Like North Korea, Goal of Leftist Students". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. April 1, 1970. p. 1.
  10. ^ "Japanese Hijackers Release 100 on Plane". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. April 3, 1970. p. 1.
  11. ^ Il Sung, Kim (1983). 統一戦線の理論と経験 [United Front Theory and Experience] (in Japanese). International Institute of the Juche Idea. p. 29.
  12. ^ Martínez, Layla (December 1, 2021). "Acabar con la música para siempre" [Ending music forever]. elsaltodiario.com (in Spanish). Retrieved January 31, 2022.
  13. ^ Baum (2016). Violence in the Skies: A History of Aircraft Hijacking and Bombing. p. IV.
  14. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived
    from the original on March 31, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  15. ^ a b c "Takaya Shiomi, former head of Sekigun-ha, up for election in Kiyose City assembly poll". April 19, 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2018.
  16. ^ a b c "Takaya Shiomi, former radical faction leader, dies at 76". The Mainichi. Mainichi Japan. January 12, 2018. Archived from the original on January 12, 2018. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  17. ^ Botting, Geoff (May 11, 2008). "From terror to parking cars". The Japan Times. p. 9.
  18. ^ Watts, Jonathan (September 9, 2002). "Japanese hijackers go home after 32 years on the run". The Guardian. London.
  19. ^ "Ex-Red Army Faction Member Says Airplane Hijacking Was 'Selfish'". Kyodo News. March 31, 2010.
  20. ^ "The Yodogō Group's "Revolution Village" Today: Where the surviving Sekigun-ha Yodogō hijackers are living in North Korea". May 16, 2014. Retrieved May 11, 2018.
  21. ^ a b "Movements of the Japanese Red Army and the "Yodo-go" Group"" (PDF). Japan: National Police Agency. 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 23, 2011. Retrieved March 15, 2007.
  22. doi:10.1353/jjs.2004.0035
    .. The suspicious deaths of Yoshida and Okamoto are referred to on pages 136 and 137. Her research is based on the journalistic work of Takazawa Koji.
  23. OCLC 53276621
    . Retrieved September 14, 2023.
  24. ^ "Yoroku: Dr. Hinohara's lifelong mission was to treat patients". Mainichi Daily News. July 19, 2017. Retrieved September 14, 2023.
  25. ^ Oka, Takashi (April 1, 1970). "An 'Action Scene'". The New York Times. Retrieved September 14, 2023.

Works cited

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