Accident at Haneda Airport brings back memories of a tragic year for aviation in Japan
CALIFORNIA — I read with interest of the horrific crash at Haneda Airport between a Japan Airlines jetliner the evening of Jan. 6 as it landed and taxied down the runway and a Coast Guard aircraft getting ready to take off. All 379 passengers on the JAL flight escaped without injury in what was a miraculous evacuation, but five of the six crew members on the Coast Guard plane died. The lone survivor, the pilot, claimed he had clearance from the control tower to take off but communication transcripts indicate otherwise. The pilot of the JAL flight said he did not see the JCG craft enter the runway.
It reminded me of early 1966, when I was a student at Sophia University, having just returned from San Francisco on JAL when a rash of accidents occurred at Haneda. On Feb. 4, All Nippon Airways Flight 60, a Boeing 727 from Sapporo crashed into Tokyo Bay attempting to make a night landing at the airport. The pilot had radioed while approaching Haneda that he was going to land without the use of instruments. All 133 people on board, most of them returning from seeing the Snow Festival in Hokkaido, perished. Fisherman and Self-Defense Force personnel helped recover the bodies from the murky waters.
A month later on March 4, Canadian Pacific Flight 402, a Douglas DC-8, coming in for a stopover at Haneda on its way to Vancouver from Hong Kong at 8 p.m., struck the approach lights and a seawall at the airport, and crashed. Sixty four of the 72 on board died. The next day, a Saturday, a BOAC Flight 911, a Boeing 707, taxied past the still smoldering wreckage of the Canadian plane and took off from Haneda bound for London with 124 passengers and crew on board. It broke up shortly thereafter while flying over Mt Fuji, due to especially fierce air turbulence. Speculation had it the pilot had flown too close to the mountain to give the passengers a better view.
Among the dead were 75 Americans with the Thermo King company of Minneapolis, Minnesota, on a company sponsored vacation tour of Southeast Asia. Sixty three children were orphaned as a result of the accident.
An interesting side note was that several people in Japan scouting locations for the James Bond film You Only Live Twice had canceled their reservations on the plane at the last minute to stay in the country and see a ninja demonstration. Among them were producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, production designer Ken Adam and director Lewis Gilbert.
Later that year in August, a Japan Air Lines Convair 880-22M crashed at Haneda and killed five people, and finally on Nov. 13, All Nippon Airways Fight 533 crashed while landing, not at Haneda this time but at Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, killing 50 people.
It was what you would call a bad year for aviation in Japan. Public confidence in air travel was shaken and both JAL and ANA had to cut back on flights due to reduced demand.
However, none of the accidents were as bad as the Aug. 12, 1985, disaster involving Japan Airlines Flight 123, a Boeing 747 with over 500 people aboard, traveling during the Obon holiday, that suffered structural failure on a flight from Haneda to Osaka and crashed in the mountains, 62 miles east of Haneda. Some 505 passengers were killed along with 15 crew members. Four people survived but were seriously injured. It was the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history. The structural failure, caused by poor repair of prior damage and maintenance by Boeing technicians, had disabled all of the airplanes flight controls and the plane flew for more than half an hour under almost no control before it crashed into Mt. Takamagahara at approximately 7 p.m.
A United States Air Force crew spotted the plane and prepared an emergency rescue operation but it was aborted at the last minute by Japanese authorities. A JSDF rescue group did not arrive at the scene until the next morning. One of the survivors, JAL purser Yumi Ochiai, said from her hospital bed, that she could hear screams of passengers during the night but they gradually faded away. JAL bookings dropped by a third and JAL share prices fell significantly after this accident. JAL, along with Boeing, and the Japanese government, paid compensation to the victims’ families. Among the dead was famed singer Kyu Sakamoto.
Japan Airlines stands to lose a lot of money on Flight 767, but it will no doubt recover.
For what it is worth, neither Japan Airlines nor All Nippon Airways were ranked in Forbes 2023 list of the 20 safest airlines in the world. (Qantas was #1, followed by Air New Zealand and Etihad Airways.)
On the other hand, a survey in 2023 by Executive Airlines found that American Airlines and Air France were the world’s most dangerous airlines, having each experienced 11 crashes. AA leads in fatalities with 858, followed closely by China Airlines at 760 fatalities, and Malaysia Airlines at 537. Neither JAL nor ANA were among the top 20 most risky airlines.
See the list here: https://executiveflyers.com/most-dangerous-airlines/
I usually fly JAL or ANA when I travel abroad, for whatever that’s worth.
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Marty Kuehnert writes:
On your most recent GOOD article, about airline accidents, you forgot one important passenger that died on JAL 123 in 1985, the Hanshin Tigers President, Hajimu Nakano.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2003/08/06/baseball/hanshins-magical-season-brings-back-memories-of-1985/
One of the world's all-time most tragic accidents occurred on Aug. 12, 1985, when Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashed into a mountain in Gunma Prefecture, killing 520 of 524 passengers and crew on board. Among those who died were famed "Sukiyaki" singer Kyu Sakamoto.
The Hanshin Tigers were hit hard by that disaster as well. Team President Hajimu Nakano lost his life in the jumbo jet crash and never got to see the team clinch its first pennant in 21 years and the (so far) only Hanshin Japan Series victory.
Peter Daniel Miller writes: The structural failure was that the tail fell off and the airplane had no
hydraulics. The tail fell off because of a tail-scraping on a previous landing.
It was inspected and given a cosmetic repair with a metal plate riveted over a
crack in the plate attaching the tail to the fuselage. It's not clear whether
that was intended to be a temporary fix or a long-term fix. The aircraft flew on
several other flights before the fatal one, but with that flaw in it, the plane
was actually doomed as soon as it took off. I vaguely recall that Boeing issued
an airworthiness advisory after the cosmetic repair, but did not absolutely
insist that the plane be grounded.
The structural failure, caused by poor repair of prior damage and maintenance
> by Boeing technicians, had disabled all of the airplanes flight controls and
> the plane flew for more than half an hour under almost no control before it
> crashed into Mt. Takamagahara at approximately 7 p.m.
The collision of two 747s on the ground at Tenerife killed more people, probably
why you wrote 'deadliest single aircraft accident'. The pilot of the JAL plane
tried desperately to fly it with engines only and no tail, no rudder, no
hydraulics. It was impossible to maintain any semblance of a straight course,
and the passengers aboard must have known it.
> Qantas was #1, followed by Air New Zealand and Etihad Airways.
The Qantas and Air New Zealand ratings are based on fatalities per mileage
flown, and since their routes are predominantly very long-haul, that biases the
results it their favor. The safety ratings should really be based on fatalities
per takeoffs and landings. Who or what is Etihad Airlines? And where is PIA
(Please I Arrive?) Pakistan Air in all this?
> a survey in 2023 by Executive Airlines found that American Airlines and Air
> France
That would be Air Chance, as it is known.
> were the world’s most dangerous airlines, having each experienced 11
> crashes. AA leads in fatalities with 858, followed closely by China Airlines
> at 760 fatalities, and Malaysia Airlines at 537.
Malaysia Airlines would win the prize for 'unluckiest airline' if there were
such a prize. It was either in the same year or two closely space years that one
of their airplanes simply disappeared over the Indian Ocean east of Perth. No
trace of it has ever been found, except a few parts that washed ashore on Sri
Lanka. The transponder had been turned off, suggesting an intentional act by the
pilot. Perhaps a co-religionist of the EgyptAir pilot who sought martyrdom for
himself and all the passengers by intentionally crashing into the Atlantic Ocean
(after reciting Allah Alihu Akbar of course). The other bad-luck Malaysia Air
flight strayed over the Ukrainian war zone where either a Ukrainian or a Russian
ground-to-air missile dispatched it.