A piece of Japanese aviation history may finally be closing. Shiro Akagi, one of nine Red Army members who hijacked a Japan Airlines jet in 1970, is reported to have died at a hospital in Pyongyang, according to a source cited by Kyodo. Japanese police are working to confirm the death, which reportedly occurred on a Saturday earlier this month, with word relayed to an associate of Akagi in Japan.
The incident remains one of the strangest episodes in Japanese aviation. On 31 March 1970, the nine hijackers took control of JAL Flight 351 — a Boeing 727 carrying 129 passengers and crew — shortly after it left Tokyo's Haneda Airport on a domestic hop to Fukuoka. Calling their action an operation to build a revolutionary base overseas, they demanded to be flown to North Korea. Some hostages were freed at Fukuoka and again during a stop in South Korea, before the plane, dubbed "Yodo", continued to Pyongyang with crew still aboard. The crew were eventually returned to Japan. Five of the hijackers, including Akagi, are believed to have lived together in North Korea ever since.
For decades the case has hovered in the background of Japan-North Korea relations, one of several unresolved legacies of 1970s radicalism and Cold War-era abductions and disappearances. If Akagi's death is confirmed, it removes one of the last active warrants tied to the hijacking, though investigations into the remaining fugitives have continued.
Why should travellers care? Because traces of the story are surprisingly visible in Japan today. The actual hijacked aircraft spent years stored at Kim Hyong Gwon Air Base near Pyongyang before being sent back to Japan in 2006, where its fuselage is now on public display at the Tokorozawa Aviation Museum in Saitama, just outside Tokyo. Aviation enthusiasts can walk up to the plane and read about the incident — one of the only hijackings in history where passengers applauded the hijackers on arrival, according to contemporary reports. The museum sits on the site of Japan's first airfield and pairs well with a day trip from the capital.
The story also explains a quirk of domestic Japanese flying: the Haneda-Fukuoka route the hijackers targeted remains one of the busiest in the world, with dozens of daily flights connecting the two cities in under two hours. Security procedures at Japanese airports, including bag checks on domestic flights, trace their modern form to incidents like this one.
There is no direct danger to travellers here — this is history, not a current warning. But it's a reminder of how much layered, sometimes dark, backstory sits behind ordinary routes and museums you might wander into on a Japan trip.
Report via Japan Today (Kyodo).