9.7.4 "New facts about the crash of JAL Flight 123: Approaching the truth from eyewitness testimony"
Many people have strong doubts about the JAL jumbo plane crash 35 years ago, and various efforts have been made to find out the truth. However, a full-fledged accident investigation has not actually been carried out.
Accident = Incident occurred on August 12, 1985. Japan Airlines flight 123 from Haneda Airport 1800 to Osaka Itami Airport crashed at 18:56 on the ridge of Mt.
Two years after the accident, on June 19, 1987, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission determined that the aircraft had been improperly repaired after the tail landing accident at Itami Airport on June 2, 1978. It has released a report stating that the cause of the accident was a rupture of the pressure bulkhead, and the lid remains closed.
However, if the pressure bulkhead was damaged, the pressurization inside the plane would drop sharply, and the air would have filled with white steam-like gas, but survivor Yumi Ochiai said,
“The white fog disappeared within seconds.
This is clearly different from other aircraft accidents involving pressure bulkhead failure. Also, if the pressure bulkhead had been damaged and the fuselage had been punctured, the air pressure inside the plane would have plummeted and most of the passengers and luggage would have been sucked out of the fuselage.
In fact, it is believed that some kind of impact from the outside damaged the tail and made the aircraft uncontrollable.
I was contacted by an engineer who was on board the 10th JAL DC aircraft at the time, and he told me what he had speculated. Also, there were some errors in the content I wrote in the August 12th article, so I will correct this point as well.
JAL flight 123 became uncontrollable and attempted an emergency landing at Yokota Air Base, not Chofu. An emergency landing at Yokota Air Base would likely have saved the lives of all passengers. However, the aircraft was intercepted from landing at Yokota Air Base and guided into the mountains of Gunma Prefecture. And it is speculated that he attempted a belly landing in the mountains of Mt. Osutaka.
The problem is that despite early confirmation of the crash site, no life-saving measures were taken.
Toko Aoyama, a former JAL flight attendant who belonged to the group that flew on "Flight 123", has been featured in her book "Memories of that day: To the stars in the sky" (Magazineland, April 2010) 1995 There is a testimony of Lt. Michael Antonucci, the pilot of the U.S. Air Force U130 transport plane assigned to Yokota Air Base at the time of the accident, in the August 27, 2008 Stars and Stripes newspaper.
This testimony is introduced from Kenji Yoneda's book, Pursuing the Mystery of Osutaka (Takarajima SUGOI Bunko).
“We were heading north-northwest as the sun was setting in the long summer sun. I saw what looked like smoke, so I turned slowly to the left and headed in. The area around Mt. It was getting darker and darker when we discovered the wreckage of the crashed plane at 7:20, a massive forest fire on the slopes of the mountain, billowing black smoke and covering the sky. rice field.
Our commander, John Griffin, was circling 2,000 feet above the wreckage of the plane. I monitored the altitude above the ground and confirmed the positional relationship to Yokota. The latitude, longitude, direction and distance from the accident site to Yokota were communicated. About 20 minutes after the crash, authorities had located the wreckage. We heard from Yokota ATC that US Marines are preparing to leave for rescue from Atsugi Air Base, about 40 miles from our current location. We could have been there in an hour. ”
“The aircraft continued to circle until 8:30. At that time, we were told that a Marine Corps helicopter was on its way to help and wanted directions. By 8:50 a.m., I could see the lights of a rescue helicopter, which was descending for reconnaissance.
At 9:05 p.m., the Marines informed us that the smoke and flames were too great to land. They asked us to contact command. I contacted headquarters.
The officer said, ``Return to the base immediately'' and ``The Japanese side is on its way''. Return to base immediately. So do the Marines.” I said, "Okay. I'm going back to base,' he replied. ”
The C130 withdrew from the scene at 9:20 pm after confirming the appearance of the first Japanese plane.
The crash site of the jumbo plane was confirmed 20 minutes after it was crashed by a US military plane. Two hours after the crash, a U.S. military rescue helicopter arrived at the scene. However, the first Japanese helicopter finally arrived at the scene at 4:40 am the next day. At 7:15 a.m., Japanese search parties decided to drop the SDF Rangers by helicopter.
It had been 11 hours since the U.S. helicopters were not authorized to assist.
The former JAL engineer who gave us the information said that he was taking the "U.S. military fighter theory" from the initial series of movements.
The tail of the JAL jumbo aircraft was damaged by an accidental firing of a target aircraft of the US military exercise, a target aircraft of the Self-Defense Forces, a certain surface-to-air missile, etc., and the jumbo aircraft became uncontrollable. The jumbo plane tried to land at Yokota Air Base, but it was unable to land at Yokota Air Base in order to prevent the truth from being discovered.
The site was confirmed 20 minutes after the crash, but rescue operations were not carried out until 7:00 the next morning.
There are still some parts that have not been confirmed, but the overall picture is probably close to this. It is necessary to elucidate the truth without burying it in the dark.