1971 mid-air collision over Japan
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
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
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
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, 22-year-old JASDF trainee pilot Sgt. Yoshimi Ichikawa and his 31-year-old instructor Captain Tamotsu Kuma 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
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 to take 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,[6] and remained so until the crash of Aeroflot Flight 217 a year later. It was also the deadliest accident to occurred in Japan at that time, surpassing the 1966 crash that also crashed 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.
