Iwo Jima LORAN-C transmitter, LORAN-C navigation transmitter in Iwo Jima, Japan.
The Iwo Jima LORAN-C transmitter is a radio navigation tower on Iwo Jima island, Japan, standing about 411 meters tall. It broadcast on 100 kilohertz to help ships and aircraft determine their position across a wide area of the Pacific Ocean.
The tower was built in 1963 but collapsed in 1964 when a guy wire insulator failed, killing four workers. A replacement tower, identical to the first, was then constructed and passed to Japanese government control in 1993.
The transmitter on Iwo Jima was part of a network that helped ships and aircraft navigate across the Pacific. Its presence on such a remote island shows how this place was drawn into international systems long after the war ended.
Iwo Jima is a remote island and is generally not open to the public without special permission. Anyone allowed to visit should expect a long journey and very few facilities once on the island.
The replacement tower built after the collapse is structurally identical to the original, making it impossible to tell from the outside that anything ever failed. This means the full story of the disaster is effectively invisible to anyone visiting the site.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
