Miyazaki Airport in southwestern Japan resumed operations Thursday morning, a day after an explosion of a wartime dud shell on the taxiway forced the cancellation of more than 80 flights.
A Japan Airlines plane to Fukuoka departed around 7:40 a.m. in the first flight since the airport was shut Wednesday for an investigation of the incident and to repair the taxiway after a hole with 7 meters in diameter and 1 meter deep was found.
Flights are expected to operate normally except for those where aircraft are not available. The explosion occurred shortly before 8 a.m. on Wednesday, with no injuries reported.
The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force said the explosive was a 250-kilogram bomb from World War II and is investigating how it exploded. The Japanese government said Wednesday a U.S.-made bomb was the cause of the explosion.
Following the incident, asphalt fragments were scattered over a radius of some 200 meters, including the runway, according to the transport ministry’s Miyazaki Airport office.
Video footage from the Civil Aviation College, which uses the airport as a pilot training base, showed a black cloud of dust and debris shooting up from the ground just two minutes after an aircraft passed nearby.
Formerly an air base of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the airport has often been affected by discoveries of unexploded U.S. bombs from World War II. Two unexploded shells were found at the airport in 2011 and another in 2021.
