Japan Air Lines Flight 123
| File:JAL stabilizer.jpg JA8119, missing the vertical stabilizer | |
| Occurrence | |
|---|---|
| Date | August 12 1985 |
| Summary | Explosive decompression |
| Site | Mount Takamagahara, Gunma, Japan |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 747-SR46 |
| Operator | Japan Airlines |
| Registration | JA8119disaster |
| Passengers | 509 |
| Crew | 15 |
| Fatalities | 520 |
| Injuries | 4 |
| Survivors | 4 |
Japan Airlines Flight 123 was a JAL domestic flight from Tokyo International Airport in Haneda to Osaka International Airport in Itami. The Boeing 747-SR46 that made this route, registered JA8119disaster, crashed into the ridge of Mount Takamagahara in Gunma Prefecture, Japan 100 km from Tokyo, on Monday August 12, 1985. The crash site was on Osutakano-O'ne (Osutaka Ridge), near Mount Osutaka.
It remains the worst single-aircraft disaster in history, and the second-worst aviation accident of all time, second only to the Tenerife disaster. All 15 crew members and 505 out of 509 passengers died (including the famous singer Kyu Sakamoto): a total of 520 deaths. The four female survivors were seated towards the rear of the plane: Yumi Ochiai, an off-duty JAL flight attendant, age 25, who was jammed between a number of seats; Hiroko Yoshizaki, a 34-year-old woman and her 8-year-old daughter Mikiko, who were trapped in an intact section of the fuselage; and a 12-year-old girl, Keiko Kawakami, who was found sitting on a branch in a tree.
Sequence of events
The flight took off at 6:12 p.m. About 12 minutes after takeoff, as the aircraft reached cruising altitude over Sagami Bay, its rear pressure bulkhead failed, resulting in the loss of the vertical stabilizer and other parts into the sea, depressurizing the cabin, and severing all four of the aircraft's hydraulic lines. A photograph (shown) taken from the ground shows that the vertical stabilizer was missing. The pilots set their transponder to broadcast a distress signal to air traffic control in Tokyo, who directed the aircraft to descend and gave it heading vectors for an emergency landing. Continued control problems required them to first request vectors back to Haneda, then to Yokota (a U.S. military air base), then back to Haneda again as the aircraft wandered uncontrollably.
With the loss of all control surfaces, the aircraft began to oscillate up and down in what is known as a phugoid cycle, a flight mode typical of accidents that disable an aircraft's controls. After descending to 13,500 feet (4100 m), the pilots reported that the aircraft was uncontrollable. It flew over the Izu Peninsula, headed for the Pacific Ocean, then turned back toward the shore and descended to below 7,000 feet (2100 m) before the pilots managed to return to a climb. The aircraft reached an altitude of 13,000 feet (4000 m) before entering a wild descent into the mountains and disappearing from radar at 6:56 p.m. and 6,800 feet (2100 m). During the oscillations that preceded the crash, the pilots managed a small measure of control by using engine thrust. The final moments of the plane occurred when it hit a mountain as a result of this loss of control, flipped, and landed on its back.
Thirty-two minutes elapsed from the time the bulkhead failed to the time of the crash, long enough for some passengers to write farewells to their families.[1]
Rescue operations
Because of rain, mountainous terrain, and darkness, rescue crews were unable to reach the crash site until the following morning, twelve hours after the crash. Most of the passengers' remains were identified, and were enshrined at the nearby village of Ueno.
There was some confusion about who would handle the rescue in the immediate aftermath of the crash. A U.S. Air Force helicopter was the first to the crash site, some 20 minutes after impact. The crew radioed Yokota Air Base to assemble rescue teams and offered to help guide Japanese forces to the site immediately. Japanese government representatives ordered the U.S. crew to return to Yokota Air Base because the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) were going to handle the rescue.
Although a JSDF helicopter spotted the wreck during the night, poor visibility and difficult terrain prevented it from landing at the site. The helicopter operator also reported no signs of survivors. As a result, JSDF forces did not get to the site as urgently as they should have, spending the night in a village 63 kilometers from the wreck, and not arriving until the following morning. It is believed that many of the survivors died during this interval.
The off-duty flight attendant who survived the crash recounted from her hospital bed that she recalled bright lights and the sound of helicopter rotors shortly after she awoke amid the wreckage, and while she could hear screaming and moaning from other survivors, this gradually died down during the night.
Cause
The cause of the crash according to the official report published by the Japanese Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission, is as follows:
- The aircraft was involved in a tailstrike incident at Itami Airport on June 2, 1978, which damaged the aircraft's rear pressure bulkhead.
- The subsequent repair performed by Boeing was flawed. Boeing's procedures called for a doubler plate with two rows of rivets to cover up the damaged bulkhead, but the engineers fixing the aircraft used two doubler plates with only one row of rivets. This reduced the part's resistance to metal fatigue by 70%. According to the FAA, the one "doubler plate" which was specified for the job, (the FAA calls it a "splice plate" - essentially a patch), was surprisingly cut into two pieces parallel to the stress crack it was intended to reinforce, "to make it fit".[[1]] This negated the effectiveness of one of the two rows of rivets. During the investigation Boeing calculated that this incorrect installation would fail after approximately 10,000 pressurizations; the aircraft accomplished 12,319 take-offs between the installation of the new plate and the final accident.
- When the bulkhead gave way, it ruptured the lines of all four hydraulic systems. With the aircraft's control surfaces disabled, the aircraft was uncontrollable.
Aftermath
The Japanese public's confidence in JAL took a dramatic downturn in the wake of the disaster, passenger numbers on domestic routes dropping by one-third. Rumours persisted that Boeing had admitted fault to cover up shortcomings in the airline's inspection procedures and thus protect the reputation of a major customer.[2] Without admitting liability, JAL paid 780 million yen to the victims' relatives in the form of "condolence money". Its president, Yasumoto Takagi, resigned, while a maintenance manager working for the company at Haneda committed suicide to "apologise" for the accident.[2]
The crash also led to the 2006 opening of the Safety Promotion Center near Haneda Airport whose director is Mr. Yutaka Kanasaki. [3] [4] This center was created for training purposes to alert employees of the importance of airline safety and their personal responsibility to insure safety. The center, which has displays regarding air safety, the history of the crash, and selected pieces of the aircraft and passenger effects (including handwritten farewell notes), is also open to the public by appointment made one day prior to the visit. All visitors must be accompanied for a tour, which can be given in English. Photographs are not permitted, although there are copyrighted photographs in a brochure available to the public. Mr. Kanasaki requested that photographs not be published on the internet or for public viewing.
See also
- List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
- Reise, Reise, an album by German NDH band Rammstein, features a part of the Flight Data Recorder of the JAL123 disaster. It's not featured in a track, but in negative time before the first song. There is also a song on the album, named 'Dalai Lama', which is about a man and his child, who are in an airplane which is about to crash. The album cover of Reise, Reise also features a Flight Data Recorder.
- United Airlines Flight 232 was another case where all control surfaces failed. Dennis E. Fitch, a deadheading DC-10 instructor who had studied the case of JAL Flight 123, used a steer-by-throttle technique to guide the plane to an emergency landing, though a wing struck the ground and the plane caught fire as it touched down. 185 out of 296 survived.
- The DHL shootdown incident in Baghdad was the first jet airliner to land safely without any hydraulics.
- Flying an airplane without control surfaces
References
- ^ Cineflix, Stone City Films (2006). Mayday: Out of Control (documentary TV series).
- ^ a b Macarthur Job (1996). Air Disaster Volume 2, Aerospace Publications, ISBN 1-875671-19-6: pp.145-153
- ^ http://www.japan-airlines-news.com/2006/11/02/the-worst-crash-in-japan-39-s-aviation-history-see.php
- ^ http://users2.wsj.com/lmda/do/checkLogin?mg=wsj-users2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB115393862354918067.html%3Fmod%3Dhps_us_pageone
External links
- Reproduction animation of JAL123 (Japanese)
- The record of JAL123 (Japanese with English place names)
- Aircraft Accident Report (PDF, East Asian fonts)
- Accident details at planecrashinfo.com
- Digital Flight Data Recorder (PDF)
- Pre-crash photo of JA8119
- JAL123 CVR (cockpit voice recorder) transcript
- JAL123 CVR (cockpit voice recorder) audio of the final moments of flight (WAV)
- Charlie-Victor-Romeo (a play which features this aircraft accident)
- Animation of the complete flight with cockpit transcript
- Japanese Breaking News of the crash of JAL123