Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Hiroshima Airport (RJOA/HIJ) is Japan's principal gateway to the Chugoku region, sited on high ground near Mihara in Hiroshima Prefecture, some 50 km east of Hiroshima city. A single long asphalt runway equipped with a CAT-IIIb ILS makes it a capable all-weather field for a simulator pilot flying domestic or international routes into western Honshu.
Hiroshima Airport serves Hiroshima Prefecture and is the largest airport in the Chugoku and Shikoku region, ranking second in traffic behind Matsuyama. It is operated by Hiroshima International Airport Co., Ltd and handles a substantial mix of domestic services, dominated by the Hiroshima-Haneda route, alongside international flights to destinations in East and Southeast Asia. For a visiting virtual pilot it offers a long, well-equipped single runway with full instrument approach capability, set in hilly terrain away from the coast.
The airport lies in the city of Mihara, Hiroshima Prefecture, about 50 km east of central Hiroshima, on elevated terrain rather than the coastal plain where the city itself sits. It replaced the original Hiroshima Airport, a waterfront field that was renamed Hiroshima-Nishi Airport once the new airport opened. As a large international airport it is served by a full suite of air traffic control positions, including radar, approach and departure control alongside the tower.
The airport has a single physical runway, 10/28, of 9,794 ft with a hard surface and runway lighting. Runway 10 is equipped with an ILS, and the runway is served in both directions by lighting for night and low-visibility operations.
Air traffic services are provided across several discrete frequencies: Tower on 118.6 MHz, Approach on 124.05 MHz, Departure on 119.9 MHz, Radar on 124.05 MHz, and ATIS on 127.25 MHz. Runway 10 carries an instrument landing system, which was upgraded to CAT-IIIa standard in 2008 and further improved to CAT-IIIb in 2009, giving the field a robust low-visibility approach capability for a field of its size.
The present-day Hiroshima Airport, then known as New Hiroshima Airport, opened for public use on 29 October 1993 as a replacement for the original Hiroshima Airport, a more centrally located waterfront field that was too small to handle widebody aircraft and could not be expanded; that older field was renamed Hiroshima-Nishi Airport. In 1994 the new field dropped the "New" from its name to become simply Hiroshima Airport. The runway opened at a length of 2,500 m, some 700 m longer than the old airport's strip, and was subsequently extended to 3,000 m in 2001. Its instrument landing system was upgraded to CAT-IIIa in 2008 and to CAT-IIIb in 2009. On 14 April 2015, Asiana Airlines Flight 162, an Airbus A320 arriving from Incheon, departed the runway on landing, injuring at least 27 of the 81 people aboard and striking the localizer antenna of the ILS; the airport closed until 17 April and reopened with the ILS temporarily offline, leading to cancellations during subsequent periods of poor weather.
Hiroshima Airport today is a busy international and domestic airport with a single terminal split between domestic and international departures and arrivals, served by carriers including All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines, J-Air, Ibex Airlines, Spring Japan, China Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, HK Express, Jeju Air, Aero K and VietJet Air. The great majority of its domestic traffic connects to Tokyo-Haneda, reflecting its role as the main air link between the Chugoku region and the capital.