The Japan News by The Yomiuri Shimbun
Blue Impulse blamed for paint stains on cars
The Air Self-Defense Force has been scrambling to contend with angry car owners after dye thought to be from the colored smoke used by the Blue Impulse aerobatic team on the opening day of the Tokyo Paralympics rained down on vehicles near an ASDF base in Saitama Prefecture.
As many as 300 vehicles are believed to have been affected. Although the colorful pigments are said to pose no health or environmental risk, they cannot easily be washed off, prompting a review of the claims with the possibility that the ASDF could be asked to foot the bill for repainting and other repairs.
Since the Paralympics’ opening day on Aug. 24, the Defense Ministry’s Air Staff Office in Tokyo’s Ichigaya district has been fielding calls from residents of the area around Iruma Air Base in Sayama, Saitama Prefecture, complaining that their cars have been stained by the dye.
There were 12 complaints from Aug. 25 to Aug. 30, and dozens more have followed. ASDF members and other investigators are sent to take photographs of each claim and examine whether the pigments matched the dye used by the aerobatic team.
According to the ASDF, the Blue Impulse’s first unit of six T-4 training jets made a flyby of the National Stadium in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, on Aug. 24 ahead of the Paralympic opening ceremony. The team drew streaks in the air with red, blue and green smoke — the colors of the Three Agitos Paralympic symbol — as part of events to celebrate the Games’ opening. During the aerobatic performance, three planes of the team’s second unit were also aloft in airspace
far to the west of central Tokyo as reserve jets.
The problem occurred at about 2:25 p.m. on the same day. Before the three reserve jets landed at Iruma Air Base, they sprayed colored smoke at altitudes below the approximately 300-meter minimum stipulated by the Defense Ministry. One of the jets sprayed the smoke at an altitude of 30 meters.
It is believed that the three dyes did not fully dissipate on their way down and adhered to cars near the base. Some of the affected vehicles reportedly had dozens of stains, each measuring up to 0.5 millimeters in size.
The colored smoke was procured with funds allocated for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, to be used only for events correlated to the Games. Mission plans called for the reserve jets
to eject their smoke before landing for the enjoyment of local residents. If the first team executed their flight without a hitch, the second team planned to deploy their smoke as the jets made their descent toward Iruma Air Base.
A pilot of one of the reserve jets was quoted as saying: “We wanted to use all the smoke. We wanted to make people living near the base, who always show their understanding [of the presence of the base], happy.”
However, the altitude limit for the use of colored smoke was not thoroughly observed among personnel involved, including those at the command center on the ground.
In 1998, similar incidents occurred in Hokkaido and Yamaguchi Prefecture, resulting in payouts to cover repainting costs.
The ASDF stopped using colored smoke in fiscal 1999 following the incidents but decided to reintroduce it to mark the Tokyo Games because of the aerobatic team’s association with the event. Blue Impulse jets drew the Olympic rings over Tokyo for the 1964 Tokyo Games and colorful straight lines for the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. “We wanted to use colored smoke at this Games, too,” a senior ASDF official said.
The ASDF spent ¥231 million over six years from 2013 to develop a new type of dye. If sprayed at an altitude of 300 meters or higher, the dye particles were shown to break up to sizes under 25 micrometers in the air, too small to have an appreciable effect on the ground below.
But according to sources, the dye cannot be removed with detergent, and most of the affected vehicles — which include brand new cars and an Italian-made luxury car — will need to be repainted.
“We don’t know how much it will cost total,” the ASDF official said. “We regret the inconvenience caused to our neighbors.” (Sept. 12)