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All Nippon Airways Flight 58

Coordinates: 39°41′N 140°59′E / 39.683°N 140.983°E / 39.683; 140.983
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All Nippon Airways Flight 58
JASDF 92-7932
Accident
Date30 July 1971
SummaryMid-air collision
SiteNear Shizukuishi, Iwate, Japan
39°41′N 140°59′E / 39.683°N 140.983°E / 39.683; 140.983
Total fatalities162 (all on board Flight 58)
Total injuries1
Total survivors1
First aircraft

An All Nippon Airways Boeing 727-200 similar to the accident aircraft
TypeBoeing 727-281
OperatorAll Nippon Airways
IATA flight No.NH58
ICAO flight No.ANA58
Call signALL NIPPON 58
RegistrationJA8329
Flight originSapporo-Chitose Airport
DestinationTokyo-Haneda Airport
Occupants162
Passengers155
Crew7
Fatalities162
Survivors0
Second aircraft

92-7932, the fighter jet involved in the collision
TypeMitsubishi F-86F Sabre
OperatorJASDF
Call signLILAC CHARLIE 2
Registration92-7932
Occupants1
Passengers0
Crew1
Fatalities0
Injuries1
Survivors1

All Nippon Airways (ANA) Flight 58 was a Japanese domestic flight from Chitose Airport to Haneda Airport, operated by All Nippon Airways (ANA). On 30 July 1971, at 02:04 local time, a Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) F-86F Sabre jet fighter collided with the Boeing 727 airliner operating the flight, causing both aircraft to crash.[1][2][3] All 162 people aboard the airliner were killed, while the Sabre pilot, a trainee with the JASDF, freed himself from his airplane after the collision and parachuted to safety. This incident led to the resignation of both the head of Japan's Defense Agency and the JASDF chief of staff.[4]

Aircraft

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The ANA airliner was a Boeing 727-281[note 1] with registration JA8329; it was three months old at the time of the accident.[5] The JASDF aircraft, belonging to the 1st Air Wing at Matsushima Airbase,[4] was a Mitsubishi F-86F Sabre, a Japanese-built version of North American Aviation's famous fighter jet, with tail number 92-7932. At the time of the accident, the F-86F was one of the primary aircraft in the JASDF's inventory.

Passengers and crew

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Most of the airline passengers came from Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture and were returning from a trip to Hokkaido.[6] Of the passengers, 125 were in a tour group made up of members of a society for relatives of Japanese servicemen killed in World War II.[7] The captain of Flight 58, Saburo Kawanishi, 41, had more than 8,000 hours of flying experience, including 242 hours on the Boeing 727.[8] He transmitted a brief emergency call between the time of the collision and the aircraft's disintegration.[9][3] The first officer was 27-year-old Tsuji Kazuhiko, who had more than 2,200 hours of flight experience, 624 of them on the Boeing 727.[8] The flight engineer was 30-year-old Donald M. Carpenter,[3] an American who had logged nearly 2,500 flight hours with 206 of them on the Boeing 727.[8]

Sequence of events

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ANA Flight 58 departed Chitose Airport near Sapporo, with 155 passengers and a crew of 7 on board for a domestic flight to Tokyo's Haneda International Airport. After takeoff, the aircraft climbed to its cruising altitude of about 28,000 feet (8,500 m).[5] Meanwhile, JASDF Technical Sergeant Yoshimi Ichikawa, 22-year-old trainee pilot and Captain Tamotsu Kuma, his 31-year-old instructor, were practicing air combat manoeuvring in their two Sabres near Morioka, northern Honshu. The trainee, unaware of the ANA aircraft, was told by his instructor to break away from Flight 58 as it approached and banked left to avoid it,[10] but was already too late and moments later, the leading edge of the Sabre's right wing struck the Boeing's left tailplane at an altitude of 26,000 feet (7,900 m). The damage to the Boeing's tail caused it to go out of control; it entered a steep dive and disintegrated in mid-air, the wreckage impacting near the town of Shizukuishi in Iwate Prefecture.

All 162 passengers and crew were killed. The Sabre, having lost its right wing, entered a spin that prevented the trainee pilot from ejecting, so he unbuckled his safety belts and freed himself from the aircraft. He deployed his parachute and landed safely. The Sabre plunged into a nearby rice paddy.[2][6]

Aftermath

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The JASDF pilots were later tried and the trainee was acquitted on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. However, the instructor was found guilty of criminally negligent manslaughter and sentenced to three years in prison, with a three-year suspension. He also lost his job.[11][12] Keikichi Masuhara, Director-General of the Defense Agency (now Ministry of Defense) and General Yasuhiro Ueda, Chief of the Air Staff, resigned afterward, taking responsibility for the incident.[4]

The loss of Flight 58 was the deadliest civil aviation disaster at the time, surpassing the 1969 crash of Viasa Flight 742 in Venezula,[6] and remained so until the crash of Aeroflot Flight 217 a year later. It was also the deadliest accident to occur in Japan at that time, surpassing the 1966 crash on the same route 5 years earlier. It remains the deadliest accident in All Nippon Airways history, the second-deadliest involving a Boeing 727, behind Mexicana de Aviación Flight 940,[13] and the third-deadliest on Japanese soil behind Japan Air Lines Flight 123 and China Airlines Flight 140.[14] ANA still operates the flight number 58, and also operate the same route (Sapporo-Tokyo), but now this flight is operated by the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ The aircraft was a Boeing 727-200 model. Boeing assigns a unique code for each company that buys one of its aircraft and applies it as a suffix to the model number at the time the aircraft is built. All Nippon's code is 81, hence "727-281".

References

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  1. ^ Sekigawa, Eiichiro (April 1975). "Mitsubishi's Mentor... ...Supersonics from Nagoya". Air International. Vol. 8, no. 4. p. 172.
  2. ^ a b "161 Die In Worst Aviation Disaster". Coshocton Tribune. Ohio. July 30, 1971. p. 1.
  3. ^ a b c "162 Die in Japan in Worst Air Crash on Record". The New York Times. July 31, 1971.
  4. ^ a b c Akihiro, Sadao (2017). 自衛隊史：日本防衛政策七十年 [Self-Defense Force History: Japan's Defense Policy for Seventy Years] (in Traditional Chinese). Translated by Yida, Zhao. Eight Banners Culture, Hiking Culture. pp. 125–126. ISBN 978-986-93844-1-4.
  5. ^ a b "Accident description, ANA Boeing 727-281 JA8329 near Shizukuishi, Japan". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation. Archived from the original on 2005-03-07. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  6. ^ a b c "Disasters: The Worst Ever". Time. 9 August 1971. Archived from the original on 1 February 2008. Retrieved 27 November 2009.
  7. ^ "朝日新聞1971年8月1日" [Asahi Shimbun August 1, 1971]. The Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese). August 1, 1971.
  8. ^ a b c "全日本空輸株式会社ボーイング式727-200型,ja 8329および航空自衛隊f-86f-40型,92-7932事故調査報告書(1)" [All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd. Boeing 727-200, JA 8329 and Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-86F-40, 92-7932 accident investigation report (1)]. Journal of the Japan Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics (in Japanese). 21 (237). Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission: 624–640. 1973. doi:10.2322/jjsass1969.21.624 – via J-STAGE.
  9. ^ Simpson, Paul (2014). The Mammoth Book of Air Disasters and Near Misses. London: Robinson. ISBN 978-1-78033-828-6.
  10. ^ "全日本空輸株式会社ボーイング式727-200型,ja 8329および航空自衛隊f86 F-40型,92-7932事故調査報告書(2)" [All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd. Boeing 727-200, JA 8329 and Japan Air Self-Defense Force F86 F-40, 92-7932 accident investigation report (2)]. Journal of the Japan Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics (in Japanese). 21 (238). Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission: 689–702. 1973. doi:10.2322/jjsass1969.21.689 – via J-STAGE.
  11. ^ "最高裁判所第一小法廷判決 昭和53(あ)1333" [Japanese Supreme Court Minor Courtroom adjudication 1978(A)1333] (in Japanese). Retrieved 2019-07-06.
  12. ^ "This Day in History: Jul 30; Fighter jet collides with passenger plane, 1971". www.history.com. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  13. ^ Ranter, Harro. "Boeing 727". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation. Archived from the original on 2013-09-28. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  14. ^ Ranter, Harro. "Japan air safety profile". Aviation Safety Network. Flight Safety Foundation. Archived from the original on 2005-03-07. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
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