TOKYO, Aug 12 — Relatives of victims from the world’s deadliest single-aircraft accident gathered today at the remote mountain site in Japan where the tragedy occurred, marking 40 years since the crash that claimed 520 lives.
TOKYO, Aug 12 — Relatives of victims from the world’s deadliest single-aircraft accident gathered today at the remote mountain site in Japan where the tragedy occurred, marking 40 years since the crash that claimed 520 lives.
On August 12, 1985, Japan Airlines Flight 123, a Boeing 747 bound from Tokyo to Osaka, crashed into a mountain about 120 kilometres northwest of the capital, just 40 minutes into its journey.
Hundreds of people, including grieving families and friends, trekked the trails to Mount Osutaka, where a cenotaph now stands in memory of those lost. Among them was a woman mourning her younger brother.
“I want to tell him that all of his family members are alive, and that we carry his soul on our shoulders,” she told Fuji TV. “We’re doing our best to live our lives.”
The disaster unfolded shortly after take-off when a loud noise was heard about 10 minutes into the flight. The aircraft soon declared an emergency, shook violently, and crashed.
The jet, nearly at full capacity with holidaymakers returning home for Japan’s “obon” summer festival, carried 505 passengers—including 12 infants—and 15 crew members. Only four passengers survived.
Investigations revealed that faulty repairs to the aircraft’s rear bulkhead by Boeing engineers seven years earlier, combined with insufficient maintenance oversight by JAL, led to the tragedy. Minute cracks in the bulkhead went undetected until they ruptured mid-flight, destroying the tail fin, severing hydraulic systems, and sending the plane into an uncontrollable descent.
The disaster remains the world’s worst single-aircraft accident, surpassed only in overall aviation fatalities by the 1977 Tenerife runway collision that killed 583 people.
More recently, Japan faced another near-tragedy in January 2024 at Haneda Airport, when a JAL Airbus collided with a smaller coast guard plane. All 379 aboard the JAL aircraft escaped before it was engulfed in flames, but five of the six crew members on the smaller plane were killed. — AFP
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