The Red Passage that Ripped the Sky: The Yodo-go and Yoshizo Tanaka" [March 1970].

The Red Passage that Ripped the Sky: The Yodo-go and Yoshizo Tanaka" [March 1970].

In March 1970, nine Red Army faction members, including Yoshizo Tanaka, hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 351 from Haneda to Fukuoka. Tanaka was at the center of the plot when he rushed into the cockpit with a replica sword in his hand. His goal was to defect to North Korea. The aircraft landed once in South Korea, and after a hostage exchange drama, finally headed for Pyongyang. This "Yodo-go hijacking" was the first full-scale hijacking of an aircraft in Japan, a shock that shook the nation.

Tanaka was born in 1948. In 1969, he went underground after being involved in a Molotov cocktail attack on the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. The following year, he carried out the incident.

In 1996, he was detained in Cambodia for the fake dollar case, and in 2000, he was extradited to Japan, where he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. While in prison, he contracted liver cancer and died of the disease in 2007 after his sentence was suspended.

His actions, in which he dreamed of revolution and ripped open the sky, were the very shadow of postwar Japan, which was wavering between ideals and reality.