By SHUN NIEKAWA/ Staff Writer
February 3, 2020 at 17:17 JST
Low-altitude test flights over central Tokyo started on Feb. 2 for passenger planes landing at Haneda Airport, drawing noise complaints and raising safety concerns among residents living under the new route.
The test flights, aimed at checking flight control procedures and measuring the effects of noise, will be conducted on about seven days and conclude by March 11.
The flights on the afternoon of Feb. 2 followed an inbound route that is expected to open on March 29.
New Haneda flight routes were devised as part of the Japanese government’s goal to increase the number of foreign visitors to Japan to 40 million this year.
The new routes will increase the number of landings and takeoffs at Haneda Airport from 80 to 90 times per hour.
With other operational improvements, the annual number of landings and takeoffs of international flights (excluding early morning and midnight flights) will jump from the current 60,000 to up to 99,000.
The Feb. 2 test flights were conducted for one hour and 40 minutes from around 4:20 p.m. and took the passenger planes about 1,000 meters above the Shinjuku Station area, about 700 meters over Ebisu Station and just 300 meters above Oimachi Station before landing at the airport.
The noise from the aircraft around the Oimachi Station area of Shinagawa Ward is estimated at 76 to 80 decibels, or the same level of a vacuum cleaner.
Many pedestrians in the area noticed a loud and low noise as one of the airplanes approached. They stopped walking and looked up at the sky.
A woman in her 60s who lives in an apartment near Oimachi Station said she heard the roar while she was indoors and with the windows closed.
“When I went outside, I had a feeling of oppression,” she said. “Even in the spring and fall when the weather is good, I will not be able to open the windows because of the noise. I am worried that my lifestyle will change.”
The transport ministry will conduct the test flights on the new landing route for up to three hours between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. in southerly winds. That is the same schedule planned for actual commercial operations.
The number of landings per hour will reach about 44 at Runways A and C at the airport.
Other test flights using passenger planes have been conducted on a route departing from Handea and flying north over Tokyo along the Arakawa river when a northerly wind blows.
These test flights started on Jan. 30 and will also be conducted on about seven days.
The transport ministry is measuring noise levels at 18 locations near the new flight routes. It releases the results the day after a test flight on the East Japan Civil Aviation Bureau’s website (https://www.cab.mlit.go.jp/tcab/noise_countermeasure/1.html).
The Tokyo metropolitan government is also measuring noise levels at five locations in the four wards of Edogawa, Minato, Shibuya and Nerima. Those results appear about three days after the test flight on the Bureau of Environment’s website (http://www.kankyo.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/noise/noise_vibration/index.html).
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A passenger plane passes Tokyo Skytree on a new flight route at 5:22 p.m. on Feb 2. (Rei Kishitsu)
