Talk:Japan Airlines Flight 123

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Disaster Management.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Aviation, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles related to aviation. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.	Aviation Portal
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
Additional information: This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked To fill out this checklist, please add the following to the template call: <!-- 1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points are appropriately cited. --> |B-Class-1=yes/no <!-- 2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain major omissions or inaccuracies. --> |B-Class-2=yes/no <!-- 3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. --> |B-Class-3=yes/no <!-- 4. It is free from major grammatical errors. --> |B-Class-4=yes/no <!-- 5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. --> |B-Class-5=yes/no

Contents 1 Passenger List 2 Deadheading 3 Worst aviation disaster of all time? 4 Japan_Airlines_Flight_123#Rescue_operations 5 Simulator recreations 6 All 15 crewmembers… 7 See Also: It sounds wrong 8 Hypothermia in the summer? 9 mid air break up? 10 Details

[edit] Passenger List

I have been looking for pasenger list of victims, since a dear friend of mine was on that fatal flight. This is first time I have come to read story.

-- I don't think there is a an online version of it (at least in English). I have a copy. Please contact me via my homepage (www.hood-online.co.uk) if interested. 17:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deadheading

What is deadheading? A quick Google search turns up references to gardening, but I'm not sure how that's relevant in this article. -Etoile 15:55, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Deadheading is a commercial aviation industry term for flight/cabin crew that are off-duty passengers on a flight operated by their employer(s). I'm uncertain about its etymology. Avalyn 16:37, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually deadheading is the movement of (a) crewmember(s), while on duty, aboard a revenue/active flight as a passenger, so that he/she may work another flight at that destination. This is to fill an opening on the crew roster, to avoid further delay and/or cancelation of that flight. A deadheading crewmember, whether pilot or flight attendant, is positive space and cannot be bumped for any reason. In some cases, a full-fare passenger is bumped to make room for the deadheading crewmember. An example: Deadhead from Chicago to Boston to work a flight from Boston to Denver.

[edit] Worst aviation disaster of all time?

"It remains the worst single-aircraft disaster in history, and the second-worst aviation accident of all time, second only to the Tenerife disaster."

Surely the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September caused more fatalities than either Japan Airlines flight 123, or the Tenerife disaster? This should make Tenerife the second worst and Japan Airlines the third.

I think it's more correct to catagorise 9/11 as a terrorist attack, not an aviation accident. Matthew king 12:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

On top of that, if one counted only the 9/11 victims who were onboard the planes, the total number killed still wouldn't surpass JAL123. Avalyn 04:53, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

And the bombing of Hiroshima, which was accomplished using a single aircraft, killed way more people than all four planes on 9/11 put together. But I don't think you'd call that an "aviation disaster" since it was planned and all of the fatalities were on the ground. - Sekicho 05:41, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

There is hell a lot of difference between casualties during war and peace time. What is implied is that it was the worst aircrash during 'Peace time'

There is also "hell a lot of difference" between a deliberate attack like 911 or Hiroshima and an accident.

All the people killed on 911 in the World Trade Center should be counted as casualties in the same way that the people killed on the ground in Lockerbie were counted as casualties of an aviation accident.

At most, you should count only the people in the planes. And even if you did, there's no reason to count the planes together. These are seperate incidents even if they're part of a wider 'incident'. So it still wouldn't be the worst aviation accident. In any case, the Lockerbie bombing was an explosion in midair whereas the September 11 planes were purposely crashed in to a building/ground. As other's have stated, counting the people in the WTC etc makes as much sense as counting people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The peacetime argument is a bit silly since it's irrelevant. But if you want to get in to peacetime arguments, the people flying the planes clearly didn't think they were at peace and even GWB has declared a 'war on terror' in response to September 11 so the claim it's any more peace time then say Pearl Harbour which also involved aeroplanes is dubious Nil Einne 09:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Japan_Airlines_Flight_123#Rescue_operations

There seems to be some stiff criticism in the article concerning the way the Japanese handled the rescue efforts. Since I suppose this is disputed, is the wording ok / npov ? I believe the US-helicopter could not land either, so: who is claiming that the Japanese handled this poorly? — Xiutwel (talk) 18:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, are you sure the American helicopter couldn't land? Or it didn't land because it was ordered away from the scene? I saw a documentary Mayday (TV series): Out of control - which was Canadian and did seem a bit American biased however it still seemed to provide a decent overview). I think the criticism focused on (the documentary didn't really cover the rescue crew issue that much):

• The fact that the US helicopter which AFAIK was first on the scene was ordered away from the scene and the Americans were prevented from helping.
• Offers of help from the US were turned down
• I believe there was some infighting amongst the Japanese over who should handle the rescue effort
• The helicopter pilot couldn't land but did AFAIK report there didn't appear to be any survivors, as such the rescue crews heading to the site chose to sleep overnight in a town rather then head to the site ASAP

It sounds to me like the Americans were ready to rappel down to the crash site and maybe even land. Potentially the JSDF helicopter took a while to arrive because it had to find the crash scene even tho the scene had already been found by the Americans (possibly while it was still light). Also, I guess questions remain over whether the Japanese helicopter should have attempted to land or at least send someone down to actually examine the scene. Don't get me wrong, I normally don't like it when Americans make them selves out to be superheroes but it does appear to me that the Japanese screwed up the rescue operation and rejected help which may have saved more lives. I assume that the goverment and the Japanese forces didn't want to be upstaged by the Americans which while not uncommon amongst any group/country, I personally find silly and in cases when it costs lives, detestable. If someone is able to help, you should accept it. It's not as if there were any secrets here or anything. Nil Einne 09:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW, here's the data I got for sunset times:

Sun and Moon Data for One Day

The following information is provided for Crash Site (longitude W138.7, latitude N36.0): 
Monday   
12 August 1985        Universal Time - 9h            

SUN
Sun transit               12:20                 
Sunset                    19:08                 
End civil twilight        19:35    

Of course, this was on a mountain so this could affect the light level significantly. But it sems like it's possible that when the US helicopter arrive at 19:16 there would have still be some light. Nil Einne 09:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW, it'll help if someone who speak Japanese could check out the Japanese article. Even more so if it's someone who was in Japan at the time and remembers the incident. I presume there was probably an outcry against the apparent bungling of the rescue operation and we should add details if it were true. Were there any people who resigned or even commited suicide over this?

[edit] Simulator recreations

I recently watched the "seconds from disaster" episode of this disaster on Discovery Channel and it mentioned that several simulations were run with very capable crew, none of which were able to land the plane and few got close to the 30 minutes of flight time achieved by the original pilots. I was thinking about adding something similar to this article. Your thoughts?

[edit] All 15 crewmembers…

According to the article, all 15 crewmembers died. However, according to a National Geographic programme about the accident, says that one of the four survivors was an off-duty flight attendant. Jon Harald Søby 14:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes she was off duty, and probably did not count as part of the flight crew for that particular flight. Limitedexpresstrain 22:11, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See Also: It sounds wrong

"used a steer-by-throttle technique he had subsequently practiced to land the plane in a controlled crash that killed 111 people of the 296 on board."

It sounds as if because of his heroics people died, not inspite of it.

I feel the rigth way of putting it would be "controlled crash that saved 185 people of the 296 on board."

[edit] Hypothermia in the summer?

"It is believed that a substantial number of people survived the initial crash, but succumbed to hypothermia before they could be rescued." -- This incident happened in mid-August. How could the survivors of the initial crash die from hypothermia? Just from the height of the mountain? But the Japanese article mentions how quickly the victims' remains decomposed and how that made identification difficult.

Don't know but remember that it was overnight so it would be significantly colder then during the day. I don't know much about hypothermia and the wiki article doesn't help but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a factor. It was probably a combination of hypothermia and shock, remember that these people had just been in a very major accident so their bodies were probably very weak and it sounds to me easily possible they would enter hypothermia even if the outside temperature was say 15-20 degrees C Nil Einne 09:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

MacArthur Job's book states that the crash took place at quite a high altitude, 5400 feet and above, in fog and rain. I'm guessing that it could have been as cold as 3 to 5 C during the night. (My guess is based on the fact that thinner air at higher altitudes doesn't hold heat well. It can be +36C/96F here on a hot summer day, but at night the temperature can dip down to almost freezing.) Add rain to a cold night and hypothermia becomes not just a possibility but an almost-certainty. --Charlene 03:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] mid air break up?

I didn't understand how it broke up mid air (though the vstab broke off the plane). But it crashed into a mountain and broke one of it's wings and finally crashing into a second mountain. --Irfanfaiz 07:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Er the plane didn't break up in mid air AFAIK. Catostrophic failure to the rear pressure bulkhead (due to faulty repairs) resulted in sudden depressurisation and the vstab breaking off but the plane was still intact until it crashed AFAIK. Nil Einne 09:46, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Details

Some details I got from the Mayday documetary (See above) which are not mentioned:

• The pilots & engineer didn't put on their face masks. I believe it's standard practice that pilots should put on their masks when decompression has occured so this is a but puzzling. Indeed there was even a suggestion by one of the crew that they should put on their masks but they didn't. While they couldn't have done anything so it likely didn't make any difference in the end, there were signs the pilots may have been suffering from hypoxia, e.g. the captain appeared to be very slow to respond (even within the cabin). I believe the was a general lack of communication from the plane to the ATC but this perhaps isn't that surprising or uncommon when the pilots are struggling to control the plane.
• JAL supposedly suffered greatly from this accident as there was a perception amongst the Japanese public the JAL was reponsible but Boeing had covered up from them (as a major customer)

Some more details although i'm not sure if these are significant enough to be added

• The offduty flight attendant evidently helped out during the emergency
• They oxygen masks (at the back?) failed during the emergency and the emergency tanks had to be used/shared
• The Japanese were reluctant to allow the NTSB and Boeing to assist the investigation. Eventually they acceeded but carefully monitored (especially the Boeing employees). This accident came at a sensitive time for Boeing as the 747 was still new and there had been another recent accident
• The Japanese were planning to bring criminal charges against Boeing but eventually decided not to (at a guess, I would say political pressure had a part and perhaps the suicide of the person responsible for the maintence)
• The tail section was found in the water near where the plane suffered explosive decompression, not long after the photo was uncovered showing it missing
• Shrines were built and petals were dropped over the site by relatives (I believe planes flew over the site). This was quite fast after the accident I believe
• Not surprisingly, it was calculated those in the front would have experiences forces in excess of 100gs so they had no chance of surviving.

I don't have a proper citation for these so won't add them myself but I guess they should be added. One more detail I read somewhere else. I believe the JLA president stated early on he would resign but would stay on to help with the investigation etc until he was no longer needed. Possibly he spent the first night with the relatives? Nil Einne 10:24, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Macarthur Job's book mentions some of this, including the public anger at JAL for a supposed coverup, the reluctance of the Japanese to allow the NTSB to assist (would have been seen as "kowtowing to the Americans" or "letting the Americans run the country" and would have been incredibly, incredibly unpopular among voters), and the shrines. Most of the rest wasn't mentioned. Interestingly, Job also mentions that the survivors were enraged by the decision by the government not to try to attempt a rescue that evening. They saw it as cowardice, and the subsequent discovery of four survivors as proof that more could have lived had the rescuers not stayed in their quarters that night. --Charlene 03:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Does anybody know whether any Boeing employee committed suicide due to the mistake made by the companY? I'd never seen this until recently & it appears on a number of websites, but have never seen it mentioned in any books or documentaries (which always make a point of mentioning the Japanese suicides). --Chris 15:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Haven't seen that in any book either - and I'd be surprised it wasn't mentioned if it did happen. It was on this page without any citation until I rewrote and sourced the Aftermath section. Cheers, Ian Rose 20:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)