The families of the victims of the 1985 Japan Airlines plane crash on Monday commemorated the 39th anniversary of the world’s deadliest single-plane air crash, which killed 520 passengers and crew. The airline is now stepping up its safety measures following a series of recent incidents.
As in previous years, relatives of the victims climbed a steep mountain path in the summer heat to pay their respects at the crash site of the Boeing 747 on the Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo.
“I want to pass on the memory of the accident to the next generation by climbing to the accident site on the anniversary,” said Junya Kobayashi, who lost his uncle Hiroyuki Kato in the crash.
The 34-year-old climbed with the backpack of his grandfather, who died in 2002.
Junya Kobayashi, who lost his uncle in the 1985 Japan Airlines plane crash, prays at a memorial for the victims on the Osutaka ridge in Gunma Prefecture on Aug. 12, 2024. (Kyodo)
The Ministry of Transport asked JAL to improve its safety record earlier this year after a series of incidents.
In May, one of its A350 jetliners touched the wing of another JAL aircraft on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda airport, but no one was injured. In the same month, another JAL aircraft waiting to take off at the southwestern Fukuoka airport crossed the hold line without permission, forcing a J-Air Corp. plane to abort its takeoff.
New JAL CEO Mitsuko Tottori has pledged to make passenger safety a top priority following a collision between a JAL aircraft and a Japan Coast Guard plane at Haneda Airport in January. The collision killed five coast guardsmen, but all 379 people on board the burning JAL A350 were safely evacuated.
On August 12, 1985, a fully occupied JAL Flight 123 en route from Tokyo to Osaka crashed about 40 minutes after takeoff. Of the 524 people on board, only four survived.
Many of the passengers were traveling to their hometowns during Japan’s Bon summer holidays.
In 1987, a Japanese government investigation concluded that the crash was caused by improper repairs to the aircraft’s rear pressure bulkhead by Boeing Co. The bulkhead had ruptured, tearing off the aircraft’s vertical stabilizer and destroying its hydraulic systems.
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