Blue Impulse Oshika Peninsula crash
Japan Air Self-Defense Force (Blue Impulse) Unknown and Japan Air Self-Defense Force (Blue Impulse) Unknown · Accident
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- Event fatalities
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Military
Aircraft 1 · Unknown
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- 46-5720
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Occupants
- Not stated
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0
- Route
- From Matsushima Air BaseTo Matsushima Air Base
Aircraft 2 · Unknown
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- 46-5727
- Onboard fatalities
- 2
- Occupants
- Not stated
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0
- Route
- From Matsushima Air BaseTo Matsushima Air Base
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Oshika, the place the Wikipedia article names. Not the accident site.
From the Wikipedia article
The Blue Impulse Oshika Peninsula crash (Burū Inparusu Oshika-hantō tsuiraku jiko) was an aviation accident on 4 July 2000 (Heisei 12) in which 2 aircraft belonging to Blue Impulse, the aerobatic team of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, crashed.
The accident
At around 10:19, while T-4 trainers of the 11th Squadron, 4th Air Wing, Matsushima Air Base, were returning after finishing training off Kinkasan, the 2-aircraft formation of aircraft No. 5 and aircraft No. 6, almost simultaneously, from Matsushima Air Base east
-southeast, at sea about 25 kilometres away, disappeared from radar, and communication with both aircraft was lost.
On board the accident aircraft were Major A (37 years old) in aircraft No. 5, and Major B (35 years old) and Captain C (35 years old) in aircraft No. 6. The weather around Matsushima Air Base that day was cloudy with a wind speed of 2.5 metres, in visual meteorological conditions (VMC), but sea fog may have been present.
On the morning of the following day, 5 July, the aircraft (aircraft No. 5, #720; aircraft No. 6, #727) and the bodies of the 3 crew were found near the summit of Hikariyama.
Investigation and cause
Towards determining the cause
Because the 2 aircraft were flying in formation until just before the crash, they are thought to have struck the area near the summit almost simultaneously. However, while aircraft No. 5 struck head-on, aircraft No. 6 appears to have noticed aircraft No. 5's abnormality and attempted to avoid the collision, and it was found to have been destroyed while bouncing.
The Japan Air Self-Defense Force's aircraft accident investigation committee, taking into account that the formation descended about 600 metres while travelling about 3 kilometres and that aircraft must fly at high altitude near the mountain that was struck, proceeded with the investigation on the view that the cause was a misjudgement of altitude for some reason.
On 31 October of the same year, Matsushima Air Base announced the findings of the investigation: the cause was that during the last aerobatic manoeuvre performed, the formation strayed from its designated training airspace, mistook ground seen through gaps in thick cloud for a point on its usual flight route, and began descending at the wrong point.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Japanese Wikipedia article “ブルーインパルス牡鹿半島墜落事故” (revision 109904278, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
Japanese Wikipedia article: ブルーインパルス牡鹿半島墜落事故
- Article
- ブルーインパルス牡鹿半島墜落事故
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 109904278 · 2026-06-12 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q28682110
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- ja Wikipedia article "ブルーインパルス牡鹿半島墜落事故" (page 3452426, revision 109904278), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- place the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata coordinates)
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator named as an armed force or military unit in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Japanese Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.