Disasters: Last Minutes of JAL 123

The early evening in Tokyo was hot (83° F) and steamy, and one of the world’s busiest air terminals, Haneda, was even more jammed and uncomfortable than usual. But most of the jostling travelers were in a festive, uncomplaining mood. The three-day observance of Bon, a holiday season nearly as joyous as New Year’s, would begin the next morning. Many Japanese would devote the days to nostalgic visits to the places of their birth, to happy reunions with relatives, to paying homage to their ancestors. The more religious among them believed that the spirits of their forefathers would return to the family sites too and join in celebration with the living. But for 520 people who boarded Japan Air Lines Flight 123 bound for Osaka, the trip would be tragically one-way: before they could honor the dead, they would join them.

Just 45 minutes after leaving Tokyo on the planned one-hour run, the huge U.S.-built Boeing 747 smashed into a mountain in a wilderness area often called the Tibet of Japan’s Gumma prefecture. The death toll made it the worst single-plane accident in aviation history. Only the collision of two other 747s, one taxiing and the second racing toward takeoff, at fog-shrouded Tenerife in the Canary Islands on March 27, 1977, killed more people: 583.

The crash in Japan was the fourth major air disaster this year. It followed the apparent midair disintegration of an Air-India 747 off the coast of Ireland on June 23, in which all 329 occupants perished. In February, an Iberia Boeing 727 crashed into a mountain in Spain, killing all 148 aboard. Just two weeks ago, a Delta Air Lines wide-bodied Lockheed L-1011 failed to reach the runway while attempting a landing in a thunderstorm at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, dooming 134. The accidents seemed to have little in common; in all but one, however, widebodied airliners were involved. With the JAL crash, the worldwide civil aviation death toll for 1985 passed 1,400, making it the most lethal air travel year in history and raising, once again, fears about safety in the skies.

The weather was humid but not unusual as Flight 123 lifted off runway C-15-L at Haneda and climbed through a light cloud cover. At the controls was Captain Masami Takahama, 49, who had flown for JAL since 1966 and was so highly regarded that he had been transferred from international to domestic routes four years ago so that he could help train new pilots. The rest of the crew included a co-pilot, a flight engineer and twelve cabin attendants. There were 509 passengers aboard the 747SR, a short-range version of the jumbo. JAL and All Nippon Airways are the only airlines that fly this model, which is structurally strengthened to absorb the jolts of the frequent takeoffs and landings required by shorter routes. As part of its fleet of 49 747s, the largest of any carrier in the world, JAL operated ten of the short-range types, which can accommodate more seats. The flight to Osaka (pop. 2,625,000), a commercial center 250 miles southwest of Tokyo, was sold out.

Flight 123 was running only twelve minutes behind its scheduled departure when it lifted off at 6:12 p.m. Tokyo time. Following its flight plan, the big plane headed south, climbed to 24,000 ft., then banked sharply right, toward the west, as it passed near the small island of Oshima, south of Haneda. At 6:25 p.m., when the aircraft was 20 miles west of the island and approaching the Izu Peninsula, Tokyo-area air-traffic controllers caught the first hint of danger.

“Immediate, ah, trouble,” radioed someone in Flight 123’s cockpit, using English, the language of international aviation. “Request turn back to Haneda. Descend and maintain 220 [22,000 ft.].” Two minutes later, a member of the cockpit crew pushed a switch that sent an emergency code signal, “7700,” flashing onto radar screens in Tokyo. Asked Tokyo control: “Confirm you are declared emergency. Is that right?” Flight 123: “Yes. Affirmative.”

Seated in row 56, just four rows from the end of the cabin, Yumi Ochiai, 26, an offduty JAL flight attendant, saw and heard the signs of trouble. “There was a sudden baan [a Japanese expression emulating a loud noise],” she–recalled later. “It was overhead in the rear. My ears hurt. Immediately, the inside of the cabin became white. The vent hole at the cabin crew seat opened.”

The cabin had lost pressure: the white mist was caused by the rush of the cold outside air into the passenger area. The vent to which Ochiai referred was a modification made in wide-bodies after a Turkish Airlines DC-10 lost its cargo door near Paris in 1974 and the difference in pressure between the lower cargo hold and the passenger cabin buckled the floor; this disrupted flight controls and spun the DC-10 into the earth, with the loss of all 346 aboard. The vent was designed to equalize pressure in any similar occurrence.

“No sound of an explosion was heard,” Ochiai continued. “The ceiling above the rear lavatory came off. The automatic O2 [oxygen] masks dropped down at the same time, and the prerecorded announcement [on use of the masks] started.”

Tokyo air-traffic control directed the troubled aircraft to turn to the east for a return to Haneda. At this point, radar showed the plane at 24,500 ft., flying at 471 m.p.h. But at 6:28 p.m., the radar indicated Flight 123 was heading northwest instead of east. Radioed Tokyo: “Fly magnetic 90 degrees.” The reply from the craft was ominous: “But now uncontrol.”

In the cabin, Ochiai felt the plane go into what she called a hira-hira, a word that describes the falling of a leaf, gentle and twisting. Radar now placed the plane at 21,860 ft., near the altitude its crew had requested. About three minutes later, Tokyo told the crew where the plane was: “You are now 72 nautical miles from Nagoya. Do you want to land at Nagoya?” A coastal city, Nagoya is 160 miles southwest of Tokyo. But the crew wished to get back to Haneda. The aircraft was now climbing again, back to 24,500 ft., and slowing only slightly.

The only hint of a potential cause of the trouble came at 6:33 p.m., and it turned out to be misleading. “R5 broken,” a crewman reported by radio. “Cabin-pressure drop.” The reference was to the right rear door of the plane through which food and supplies are normally brought into the cabin. The door had not been opened at Haneda before takeoff.

At 6:35 p.m., Ochiai found that the oxygen supply for the mouth masks had run out, but she had no difficulty breathing. The aircraft’s purser now told the passengers that there was an emergency. Ochiai helped the on-duty attendants instruct the passengers on how to strap on their life preservers and assume a head-down, forward-leaning position for a possible crash landing. Then, she said, the plane went into a Dutch roll, dipping one wing, then the other. Apparently, Captain Takahama was trying to steer the aircraft by alternately increasing power to the left and the right engines. The maneuver produced a yawing and rolling motion as though Flight 123 were cutting figure-eights in the sky.

At 6:40 p.m., Ochiai was surprised to see Mount Fuji out a left window. “I thought the plane was heading back to Haneda,” she said. Actually, radar operators saw the aircraft make a wide circle at this point, fully 360°, near Japan’s sacred mountain, which was far north of the planned course to Osaka.

The 747 was not sticking to a steady course, and at 6:46 p.m., the dire message came again from the cockpit: “Uncontrol.” Replied Tokyo: “Do you want to communicate with Haneda?” The answer, now in a loud voice: “Yes, please!” The craft was tracked at 11,700 ft. and had slowed to 299 m.p.h. One minute later, Flight 123 asked for the heading into Haneda, adding, “Uncontrollable.” Tokyo’s reply: “Maintain magnetic 90 degrees. Can you control?” The by now familiar answer: “Uncontrollable.” The craft was down to 9,850 ft. By 6:49 p.m., the 747 had dropped to 7,880 ft., and now came the first clear sound of fear from the cockpit. “Waaah!” a crew member shouted into the microphone, an exclamation of surprise and alarm in Japanese. Mysteriously, the aircraft began climbing again, to 9,160 ft. Captain Takahama was apparently fighting for altitude. By 6:54 p.m. the 747 had reached 11,400 ft. and was 55 miles northwest of Haneda. Advised of this location, a crewman responded, “Roger.” It was to be the last transmission.

A minute later, the plane was advised, “Haneda and Yokota both ready. You can start landing procedures any time.” Yokota, a U.S. air base, had already been told by Tokyo air-traffic control, as had Haneda, to be prepared for an emergency landing. But there was no reply from Flight 123.

On the ground, Keiichi Yamazaki heard the unusual sound of an airliner above his home in Nippara, a remote mountain village. “All of a sudden, a big air plane appeared from between mountains, just like out of no where,” he recalled. “Four times it leaned to the left, and each time it tried to recover its balance to the right. It was flying just like a staggering drunk.”

In the cabin, Ochiai had strapped herself into her seat. “The plane started dropping at a sharp angle, almost vertically,” she recalled. “Soon there were two or three very sharp impacts, and seats and cushions all around me came tumbling down on me. I was covered with seats, and I couldn’t move. I suffered a piercing pain in my stomach. Finally, I was able to unfasten my seatbelt, but I found myself trapped between seats, and I could not move at all.”

Horrified controllers had watched the disabled aircraft drop to below 10,000 ft. and then, at 6:57 p.m., disappear from their radar screens altogether. The 747, still heading north rather than east, had plunged into a slope of 5,400-ft.-high Mount Osutaka, a pine-covered granite peak. Weighing more than 350 tons, the plane buried much of its fuselage in a steeply angled ridge at an altitude of 4,700 ft. Flames spurted into the sky as the impact ignited fuel tanks; even the metal scraps burned fiercely as the 747 sliced through the trees.

It was dark when Ochiai mercifully fell asleep, still pinned in the wreckage. But before she did, she later told a hospital nurse, she heard children crying. The sounds were loud, but gradually grew softer. Then there was silence. Ochiai heard one other loud noise: that of a helicopter. She waved her hand, but nothing happened. Then she slept. She did not know how long.

The flames had attracted searchers dispatched by Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force. They made passes in two planes but saw nothing moving in the desolate, fiery scene. Much of the wreckage had spilled onto a nearly 45° slope, and there was no way for even a chopper to land safely in the dark. Expecting no survivors, the searchers spent the rainy night setting up a base in the mountain village of Uenomura, 42 miles from the crash site. Area firemen and Japan’s Ministry of Transport also mobilized searchers. But the narrow, serpentine roads and trails winding up from the villages in the valley ended far below the wreckage high on the mountain. Nonetheless, some rescuers set out on foot during the night.

At daybreak, before any of them had reached the site, TIME Tokyo Bureau Chief Edwin Reingold surveyed the area from a helicopter. “The crash scene was still and seemed oddly, pitifully small to represent such a major disaster,” he reported. “The body of the jet had crashed through trees, uprooting them as they tore the plane apart. Stripped and blackened trees were still smoldering, and small fires could be seen amid surprisingly tiny pieces of debris. There was no sign of life. No bodies were visible. But this was deceptive. The plane had broken apart, and major parts of it, as well as its human cargo, had been flung into the ravines and gullies on either side of the narrow ridge. The air was filled with a vile stench from the burning plane, in grim contrast to the cool, clear, bracing air of the cloud-shrouded mountaintop.”

It was not until about 9 a.m., more than 14 hours after the 747 had gone down, that local firemen reached the site following a difficult climb, while paratroopers began rappelling down ropes from hovering helicopters. One of the fire men, scouring a ravine, suddenly shouted, “There’s something moving down there!” He had spotted Ochiai between the seats. She was seriously hurt, with a broken pelvis and arm fractures, but she was conscious. Next the searchers found Keiko Kawakami, 12, caught in a tree and, incredibly, suffering only cuts and torn muscles. Also still alive were Hiroko Yoshizaki, 34, and her daughter Mikiko, 8, who were found under debris. Both had broken bones. The two children were lifted to the helicopter in the arms of troopers hanging from horse-collar slings. The women were winched into the chopper on stretchers.

Word of the miraculous survivals fired up the hopes of some 2,000 relatives and friends of passengers who by now had reached the small town of Fujioka, 35 miles northeast of Mount Osutaka, to await the results of the search. But no one else was found alive.

Some relatives tired of the wait and, defying police orders, scrambled over the rocky terrain. Yoshiaki and Kuniko Miyajima reached the remnants of what seemed to be seat 12-K; it had been as signed to their son Takeshi, 9, who had been flying to visit an uncle. The couple prayed over the shattered seat. Several giant sumo wrestlers reached the wreck age, in which the wife and two children of their “stablemaster,” or trainer, had died. Doctors who helped retrieve the bodies, many of which were horribly broken, also found some whose injuries might not have been fatal had help come more quickly. Contended one physician: “If the discovery had come ten hours earlier, we could have found more survivors.”

What caused the disaster? The first and perhaps most significant clue was found the morning after the crash by the crew of a Japanese destroyer cruising in Sagami Bay. The sailors discovered floating on the waves a 15-ft. section of the 747’s 35-ft.-high vertical tail fin. Further searching in the water turned up more than 30 other plane parts, most notably a 10-ft-long portion of the rudder assembly and a 104-lb. fiber-glass duct containing tubing and valves that had been attached to an auxiliary power unit in the tail section (see diagram).

A 747 cannot be flown without its entire tail fin, which helps stabilize the big craft, and can be flown only with great difficulty without the attached rudder, which is moved to alter the plane’s heading, or horizontal direction. The pilot can vary the thrust of the engines and use ailerons, hinged sections of the plane’s wings, to maintain altitude and make turns, although directional control is difficult.

The auxiliary power unit provides electricity and compressed air primarily for air conditioning and on-board controls when the craft is on the ground and the engines are not producing this power. The unit is also a backup for the surface controls, like the rudder, in flight. Some experts theorized last week that as the auxiliary system disintegrated it might have ruptured hydraulic lines in the tail, which, in turn, could have affected the aircraft’s main controls.

Pilots gave high praise to Captain Takahama for keeping his stricken 747 in the air for at least 32 minutes after the tail damage was sustained over Sagami Bay. “In spite of such terrible conditions, the plane was kept aloft by engine thrust only,” said Mitsuo Nakano, JAL’s deputy chief of 747 pilots. “That is an incredible performance.” A U.S. expert, Captain Homer Mouden of the Flight Safety Foundation in Arlington, Va., agreed. “The crew exhibited great courage and skill in trying to keep it sea flying,” he said. But the odds loose,” a United Air Lines pilot said. But why did so much of the tail break away in the air? That mystery was being probed by investigators from the Japanese Ministry of Transport as well as an advisory team from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and a group of experts from the Boeing Co. in Seattle. Initial speculation that the rear cabin door, mentioned by the crew over the radio, may have broken loose and struck the tail above it was abandoned when the door was found amid the wreckage on Mount Osutaka, still firmly attached to a part of the fuselage.

As the week went on, the experts’ suspicions were also directed at the aircraft’s rear bulkhead, an aluminum-alloy partition that separates the pressurized cabin from the non pressurized tail assembly. Hiroshi Fujiwara, deputy investigator for the Ministry of Transport, said that the bulkhead was found at the crash site and that it had been “peeled like a tangerine.” It was possible, he said, that if the partition had cracked in flight, the air rushing from the cabin could have had enough force to dislodge the hollow tail fin. American experts theorized that the large number of takeoffs and landings, each involving a pressurization or depressurization of the cabin, required in the short-range use of the 747SR could have accelerated metal fatigue in the bulkhead. The crashed aircraft had made some 18,000 “cycles” (a takeoff and a landing).

One part of the history of JA8119 (the plane’s serial number) particularly attracted the probers’ attention. On June 2, 1978, the aircraft approached a landing at Osaka with its nose too high. The tail and the rear part of the fuselage slammed into the tarmac at 320 m.p.h.; the impact ripped aluminum skin panels from the belly of the plane. JA8119 was grounded for a month while Boeing engineers supervised repairs that included replacement of the lower part of the rear fuselage.

The tail assembly and the repairs were examined visually after the work was done, according to Hiroaki Kohno, general manager of JAL’s maintenance planning department. There was no need for X-ray examination, he said, because “we had full access to the damaged area from the underside.” Could some damage have been overlooked at that time? “That cannot be completely ruled out,” Kohno conceded, “although that probability would be very low.”

A British aviation expert remained suspicious of the botched Osaka landing as a possible cause of Flight 123’s crash. William Tench, recently retired chief inspector of accidents at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, said he knew of cases in which it took three years before a crack became visible after an aircraft was heavily jolted. Japan’s Ministry of Transport promptly ordered that the tail areas of all 747s registered in that country be re-examined, with special attention to the link holding the fin to the fuselage.

Shortly afterward, Boeing sent a worldwide advisory from Seattle suggesting that all carriers using 747s “may wish” to follow the Japanese example by visually inspecting the tail fin and rudder structures on these planes. The company also suggested an inspection of the rear bulkhead. A spokesman for the U.S. Air Transport Association said that “everybody will follow those recommendations to a T.” The procedure, which should take about two hours, can be done between flights and during refueling stops.

Despite the precautions, none of the experts were worried about the overall reliability of the 747, which some pilots affectionately call “Fat Albert” because of its bulging profile. Many consider it one of the safest airliners ever built. It is also the largest, with a wingspan of 196 ft. and a length of 232 ft. Boeing has delivered 618 of the planes to 68 airlines since production began in 1966. Only 15 of the jumbos have been lost, and none of the previous accidents were attributed to structural or mechanical defects. Still, the sundered tail sections that dropped into Sagami Bay last week suggested that some kind of structural weakness may finally have caught up with one particularly hardworking model of the 747.

Whatever the eventual findings, Yasumoto Takagi, 73, the president of JAL, assumed full responsibility for the tragedy and told Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone that he would resign. Nakasone made no effort to dissuade him. High officials in Japan, whether governmental or private, consider it ethically mandatory to leave office when something goes disastrously wrong, even if they were not directly responsible.

The year’s series of wide-body crashes, though seemingly unrelated in their causes, nonetheless raised once again the question of how many people should be packed into a single aircraft. No matter how safe the plane or how economically efficient the ever increasing payload, any accident involving a huge plane becomes potentially catastrophic in loss of life. Boeing has orders for the 747-300, a model configured to handle 600 passengers. Asked if that seemed wise, Jerome Lederer, founder of America’s Flight Safety Foundation, said that evacuation of so many people in the event of trouble would be difficult, adding, “I would want to sit next to an emergency exit.”

But when the world’s largest airliner smashes into a mountain, there is no escape, except for the very few–four this time–favored by the whims of fate. That was tragically clear last week as the helicopters carried body after body, wrapped in bright blankets, down from the smoldering wreckage on Mount Osutaka. –By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Yukinori Ishikawa/Fujioka and Edwin M. Reingold/Tokyo