The 747 soon slipped into a left turn and climbed steeply, prompting ATC to ask if they had regained control yet. Captain Takahama also declined Tokyo Control's suggestion to divert to Nagoya Airport 72 nautical miles (83mi; 133km) away, instead preferring to land at Haneda,[3]:302 which had the facilities to handle the 747. The Boeing technicians fixing the aircraft used two separate splice plates, one with two rows of rivets and one with only one row when the procedure called for one continuous splice plate (essentially a patch or doubler plate) with three rows of rivets to reinforce the damaged bulkhead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxT51aeUaHQ. With the total loss of hydraulic control and non-functional control surfaces, the aircraft began up and down oscillations in phugoid cycles lasting about 90 seconds each, during which the aircraft's airspeed decreased as it climbed, then increased as it fell. Using the transcripts, Iwao reconstructed the next few minutes as follows: Takahama and Sasaki saw warning lights go on as they suddenly began to lose the hydraulic pressure that powers the tail, ailerons and other control surfaces. What a banal reason for such incalculable suffering. TV Tropes [3]:19,91 After this impact, the aircraft flipped on its back, struck another ridge 570 metres (1,870ft) northwest from the second ridge, near Mount Takamagahara, and exploded. The combined phugoid and Dutch roll caused the plane to fly like a ship on a storm-tossed sea, rising and falling, rolling and plunging, swaying back and forth as it staggered forward, unstable on every axis of motion. A Boeing inspector reviewed the work soon after its completion but failed to detect that it had been carried out improperly, because the mistake had been covered up by a fillet seal. I couldnt see any light, but I could hear the sound, and it was quite near, too. [3] Ed Magnuson of Time magazine said that the area where the aircraft crashed was referred to as the "Tibet" of Gunma Prefecture. [3]:123,127[21], The aircraft's crashed at an elevation of 1,565 metres (5,135ft) in Sector 76, State Forest, 3577 Aza Hontani, Ouaza Narahara, Ueno Village, Tano District, Gunma Prefecture. During the entire period, the SELCAL alarm continued to ring,[3]:32023 to which the pilots did not react. Another senior 747 captain who requested anonymity said the transcripts indicate Takahama exercised his pilots prerogative to turn back to Haneda, rejecting a controllers suggestion to try for Nagoya, 102 miles west. It actually made it around 12,000 cycles until that August 12 flight. Well done crew. First Officer Yutaka Sasaki ( , Sasaki Yutaka) was undergoing training for promotion to the rank of captain, and flew Flight 123 as one of his final training/evaluation flights, acting as captain on the flight. Fire on the Mountain: The crash of Japan Airlines flight 123 With each pressurization cycle, a force of 8.9 psi was applied to the bulkhead and then removed a force sufficient to crack the weak splice section where the single row of rivets intersected the bulkhead skin. Take control, right turn! Throughout the night Mikiko never stopped telling her mother not to fall asleep, which Hiroko credited with saving her life. In the cockpit, the pilots heard the bang and felt the explosive decompression. It is open to the public by appointment made two months before the visit. It would prove to be a fatal miscalculation. Dont go! I waved desperately. The controller asked the crew for the nature of their emergency, but there was no reply. Metallurgical analysis of the fracture surface showed conclusively that the skin had failed in fatigue right along the row of rivets over the course of many pressurization cycles. [3]:16 This is possibly due to the effects of hypoxia at such altitudes, as the pilots seemed to have difficulty comprehending their situation as the aircraft pitched and rolled uncontrollably. Pilot Fought to Control Doomed Jet Up to the End Is it to the rear? Flight Engineer Fukuda asked, apparently talking to a flight attendant on the interphone. I didn't remember this one. There were 509 passengers aboard. A photograph taken from the ground confirmed that the vertical stablilizer was missing. Together, they are known as the Jimmies, referring to jimi (), the But trying to stabilize the plane using the engines alone would be a daunting task. A Japan Airlines maintenance manager committed suicide soon after the crash to apologize for the disaster (some incredulous relatives suggested that maybe a Boeing manager should apologize the same way). A U.S. Air Force C-130 crew was the first to spot the crash site 20 minutes after impact, while it was still daylight, and radioed the location to the Japanese and Yokota Air Base, where an Iroquois helicopter was dispatched. "[3]:89 Shortly after 6:40p.m., the landing gear was lowered in an attempt to dampen the phugoid cycles and Dutch rolls further, and to attempt to decrease the aircraft's airspeed to descend. [8], A United States Air Force navigator stationed at Yokota Air Base published an account in 1995 that stated that the U.S. military had monitored the distress calls and prepared a search-and-rescue operation that was aborted at the call of Japanese authorities.
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