Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is planning to reinforce its monitoring of foreign airlines serving Japanese airports by creating the post of "safety measures officer" for aircraft of foreign carriers within its Civil Aviation Bureau, ministry sources said on Oct. 21.

The ministry is concerned about a potential increase in problems and accidents involving foreign carriers, the sources said.

The ministry has so far been supervising the safety measures of Japanese airlines but decided to expand the scope of its monitoring, given recent problems involving foreign carriers, notably the non-fatal explosion of a Boeing 737 passenger plane of Taiwan's China Airlines in August, the sources said.

The safety measures officer would be tasked with gathering information about non-Japanese carriers and liaising with aviation safety officials of other countries, the sources said.

If there is a problem or an accident, the officer would also question officials of the airline involved, the sources said.