Summer 1985, Osutaka — The Tragedy of JAL Flight 123

In the previous chapter we saw how, within the framework known as the 45/47 system, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways shared the roles the state had assigned them, living through a stable era protected by regulation. The skies were held within an order.

Yet in the very midst of that order, Japan’s skies were about to experience the deepest sorrow of the postwar period.

This chapter records the events of the summer of 1985. It concerns an aviation accident in which many lives were lost. As the writer, I wish first to bow my head deeply to those who perished, and to their families and all who were affected. Here I will carefully follow only the facts made public by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission, and only what has been publicly confirmed. Setting aside speculation and sensationalism, I want to quietly set down what happened, and what was learned from it.

August 12, 1985

That day fell in the Obon homecoming season, the busiest time of year for the skies.

A little after 6 p.m. on August 12, 1985, Japan Airlines Flight 123 departed Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, a domestic flight bound for Osaka’s Itami Airport. The aircraft was a large jumbo jet, a Boeing 747. On board were 509 passengers and 15 crew, 524 people in all. Families, people heading home from work, people returning to their hometowns — it was an ordinary summer flight.

Shortly after takeoff, an abnormality occurred in the rear of the aircraft. A shock reached the cockpit, and afterward the plane could no longer maintain stable flight. Amid a situation that changed by the moment, the crew kept flying, seeking to turn back toward Tokyo or to find somewhere they could make an emergency landing.

In conditions where control was extremely difficult, the aircraft moved toward the mountainous region near Gunma and Nagano. It is said that more than thirty minutes passed between the onset of the abnormality and the crash. During that short yet long span of time, words exchanged in the cockpit and several notes written aboard the plane would later become known. That there were people who tried to right the aircraft until the very end, amid confusion and fear, and people who sought to leave their thoughts for those they loved — these facts still move many hearts today.

At 6:56 p.m., the aircraft crashed into the mountains of Ueno Village in Gunma Prefecture, at a spot that would later come to be called the ‘Osutaka Ridge.’ Of the 524 people aboard, 520 died, and there were four survivors. It is recorded as one of the largest single-aircraft accidents in the world in terms of the number of lives lost.

Each one of those numbers was an irreplaceable human life. Before the weight of that, the writer wishes to choose words with care.

What the Accident Investigation Commission Confirmed

From the day after the accident, a desperate search and rescue was carried out in the steep mountains. The crash site was a sharp, trackless ridge, and it is said that simply reaching the scene was no easy matter for the rescue teams. Even so, no effort was spared in the search, and four survivors who had been in seats near the rear of the aircraft were rescued. At the same time, an investigation began to clarify why this accident had happened. An answer worthy of the weight of the lives lost had to be produced — that was a question imposed on society as a whole.

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission, then under the Ministry of Transport, examined the wreckage, the flight records, and the maintenance history over a long period, and in 1987 it published its accident investigation report.

The conclusion the report reached was that damage to a component in the rear of the aircraft known as the ‘aft pressure bulkhead’ had led to the accident. The pressure bulkhead is the wall-like part that partitions the rear of the aircraft in order to maintain cabin pressure at altitude. The report estimated that damage to this pressure bulkhead had a serious effect on the subsequent control of the aircraft.

And as the background to that bulkhead’s failure, it was pointed out that a repair carried out some years before the accident may not have been appropriate. Over long periods of flight, minute cracks from metal fatigue are estimated to have gradually spread around the repaired area, eventually leading to the failure. This is the outline of the conclusion the Accident Investigation Commission publicly presented.

Over the years, various views and arguments have been voiced about the accident. But this series takes the position of introducing, in a neutral manner, the publicly established conclusion of the Accident Investigation Commission, and does not venture beyond it into further assertions or unverified theories. To protect the dignity of those who died and of the bereaved, I take it as the writer’s duty to remain within the range of what has been confirmed.

Turning Sorrow into a Legacy of Safety

A single accident took so many lives. Before that fact, those involved in aviation took on the heavy task of never repeating the same thing again.

After the accident, a long process of review advanced over the way aircraft are maintained and inspected, over emergency response, and over how organizations that protect safety should be structured. Aviation safety stands upon the accumulation of countless lessons learned from individual accidents. Within that accumulation, the events at Osutaka occupy a place that must never be forgotten.

The bereaved families, too, while carrying their grief, have continued to raise their voices in the wish for safety. So that no one would ever again feel what they had felt, they record what happened and pass it on. That work has become not only an act of mourning but also a force that supports the safety of the future. The existence of each person who died, transformed in shape, watches over the safe journeys of those living now — perhaps it can be received that way.

In 2006, Japan Airlines opened the ‘Safety Promotion Center’ at Haneda. Preserving records of the accident and part of the aircraft, it serves as a place where employees and visitors can learn the weight of safety. To not let it fade, to pass it on, to hand the lessons to the future — within such work lies one way of answering those who died.

Every August, people who mourn the dead climb the steep mountain path to the Osutaka Ridge. For the bereaved, for all who were involved, and for society, this place continues to be a place of prayer.

To say much in this chapter is not the writer’s intention. Only this: that there were 520 lives, that each one had a life of their own, and that those left behind have gone on living with their grief — to quietly hold that in our hearts is, I believe, the modest respect we can offer now.

Beyond the deep sorrow and reflection, Japan’s skies will, before long, meet another phase. The era protected by regulation moves toward its end, and a new wind — competition — begins to blow. In the next chapter, I would like to look at what that change meant.