Japan Airlines Flight 123 | A Short Documentary | Fascinating Horror
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ค. 2024
- "On the 2nd of June, 1978, a Boeing 747 approached Japan's Itami Airport for a landing on Runway 32L..."
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And a special thank you to Miles Lee, who prepared the script for this video.
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
00:52 - Background
01:51 - Japan Airlines Flight 123
09:20 - The Aftermath
MUSIC:
► "Glass Pond" by Public Memory
SOURCES:
► "747 Survivor Tells of Jet Breaking Up: Sections of Ceiling Fell; JAL Craft ‘Weaved Wildly’" by Sam Jameson, published by the Los Angeles Times, August 1985. Link: www.latimes.com/archives/la-x...
► "524 killed in worst single air disaster" by Harold Jackson, published by The Guardian, August 1985. Link: www.theguardian.com/fromthear...
► "Last Minutes of JAL 123" by Ed Magnuson, published by Time Magazine, June 2005. Available via: web.archive.org/web/200706300...
► JAL Safety Center website, published by Japan Airlines. Link: www.jal.com/en/safety/center/
► "Nearly 40 years ago, a Japan Airlines crash killed over 500 people, cost the airline millions, and made ridership plummet" by Grace Eliza Goodwin, published by Business Insider, January 2024. Link: www.businessinsider.com/japan...
► Aircraft Accident Investigation Report (Translated) published by the Aircraft Accident Invesigation Commission, June 1987. Available via: web.archive.org/web/201602040...
#Documentary #History #TrueStories
Want to learn a little more about the crash of United 232, which ended in a survivable crash landing largely because of the training one pilot undertook after learning about this disaster? Here's the episode I made on it back in 2023: th-cam.com/video/R54kp8cP_LM/w-d-xo.html
Greatest display of airmanship in the history of commercial aviation. RIP Captain Haynes and Captain Fitch.
Hard to believe I wrote that script a year ago - it all comes full circle with this one.
JAL123 is - and will probably always remain - the worse single airliner accident in aviation history.
Pretty much sadly. 😢
U❤
What still amazes me to this day, is how the pilot managed to keep the plane flying for 30 minutes before eventually crashing, and even then, not even the most professional of pilots could manage to replicate that time in simulators replicating the flight path.
Keep in mind that they were also suffering from hypoxia.
That too! It’s genuinely incredible, and heartbreaking.
Didn't their oxygen masks deploy? I find that odd if the masks did not deploy.
i wonder how the DEI "box tickers" would cope today?
@@mikefoehr235 I don't think pilot oxygen masks deploy (or deployed at the time) the way passenger oxygen masks deploy. Any time I've seen cockpits etc. depicted in documentaries or movies, the ceiling has control switches on it.
The fact the Japanese government at the time REFUSED aid was what resulted in only 4 survivors.
Many more WOULD have been saved if help arrived sooner.
What the survivors described following the crash was nothing short of nightmarish.
Screaming,moaning, cries for help, all of which would fade away to nothing as time went on...
Chilling....
Pride goes before the Fall.
Peak japan government characteristic 👍
For a country that's so well prepped for disaster recovery from earthquakes, it was shameful.
@@robertphillips6296 that's japan for ya!
They have a difficult relationship with the US. From the black ships, having atom bombs dropped on them and the awful the US have handled using Okinawa as an airforce base, they have had a lot of bad things happen to them
You slide over it, but there was also a great deal of outrage over the fact that the ground-based rescue mission that was sent decided to camp overnight instead of going straight there. They believe there were no survivors so it didn’t matter when they arrived. They could’ve been there hours and hours earlier.
same Japan that kills hundreds of whales every year for "research purposes" to sell meat on Japan markets? who would have thought that society where war criminals are glorfied would do something like that...
I dont know why Im like "wouldn't have happened in America 🇺🇸". We screw stuff up all the time 🤷🏽♀️
@@poutinedream5066 So true...
@poutinedream5066 funny you say that, though because there was an American military base nearby and they offered to go help right away, but weren't allowed to.
@@ivanamendez478 Yeah, wonder why the Japanese weren't keen on having USian fascists running a rescue operation, truly the question of the century 😂
This is the Japanese version of the Kursk; They were offered help, it *WOULD* have saved lives, including those of children, and they refused due to national pride.
Mothers listened to their children dying, for national pride.
And the South Korea ferry
National pride has had more negative consequences than positive ones in history. Yet people keep going down that road doomed to repeat mistake after mistake.
@TitaniumTurbine To be fair national pride is not a bad thing in on itself. It helps bring people together. BUT, it should never stand on the way of savings lives and peace.
@@thomasedwardharrison2879 that was what came to my mind too.
Yeah, I mean, it is Japan though, that's kinda their whole thing.
It’s amazing the pilots were able to keep the plane in the air as long as they did given the circumstances.
Don't forget they were suffering from hypoxia too..
@@BlackAdder747 don't forget that some pilots even tried to survive longer in the flight simulator version of the situation but they couldn't survive longer than those pilots already under hypoxia. The purpose of those simulations was to investigate if the there were pilot errors that led to the crash and how they could have avoided it, but there was no way to survive it.
@BlackAdder747
They had masks on and didn't suffer from Hypoxia, if they did they would not of figured out how to fly the queen by just engine thrust alone.
The official crash report stated the pilots oxygen tanks still had around 4 mins left which proves the pilots were not hypoxic as the crew tanks unlike the passenger ones last for 30mins
@@PRCOMincorrect. They were suffering from hypoxia
@jtp2007 oh yeah because you were there, and the official crash report and its findings were incorrect???
You saying you know better than the official report
The Japanese government sure as murdered those survivors for pride not wanting the USAF to get "credit" for the rescue. Horrible.
I don't think it had anything to do with credit. They might have thought of it as losing face.
It's a shame if more lives could've been saved with the help
@@tamfuwing1They lost a lot more face by killing all those people. Politicians are idiots in every country...
Yet they always call home on US whenever ol China coming with threats these days lol 😂
Agreed. This stupid stuff happens all the time. No country should refuse aid from another during an emergency. Countries should take all the help you can get! Heck, they might even make some new friends.
It's very frustrating when you learn about the way Japanese authorities at the time handled this accident. Not only did they refuse assistance from the US military who could've reached the crash site much sooner, they made it extremely difficult for the NTSB to conduct their investigation by heavily restricting access to the crash site.
This happened with the Russians and the submarine Kursk. There were a number of countries that could have helped in the immediate moment that the submarine lost contact with the Russians refused. They would have been able to save them.
Very few people outside of Japan (and probably even in Japan now) are aware of what I’m about to say, but it was rumored amongst Japanese aviation circles that this 747 did not crash from a bulkhead failure as is often described, but was accidentally shot down by the JDF during a missile test that went wrong. I’m only aware of this because a close family friend, who was a captain at JAL at the time, shared this rumor with me, and this was years ago. In the time since, I was able to collaborate that a long-range AA missile test did in fact take place nearby that day. Unfortunately, most of the info I came across in my research was in Japanese but I did find a couple of videos in English, one of which was an interview of the American C-130 pilot. I’ll try to share links but if I can’t I’ll share their names.
@@Remote-Planetthats both scary and normal at the same time...
@@narmale yep, nothing surprises me these days. Btw I created a public playlist containing some of the videos I came across during my research.
@@Remote-Planet which missile that was suspected to cause the alleged shotdown? HAWK, Type 81, or something else?
I remember this story. Truly horrifying. Hero pilots though, they tried everything they could and then some. Boeing still didn’t know how they managed to keep it in the air for as long as they did and couldn’t recreate it.
The real ATC is available and is awful to hear them in the end when they know they’re about to die.
Tbh Boeing seem to deny knowing a lot of things now
Oh man, I don’t know if I can listen to that
@@rebekahwolkiewicz449 Yeah, I know me, and it would probably make me cry and fuck me up for the rest of the day.
I’ve memorised the plane’s registration, JA8119!
1:46 Japan Airlines actually requested their own specific variant of the 747 that could safely accomodate frequent short flights rather than the longer routes the 747 was originally meant for, while still carrying the same number of passengers. The result was the 747SR, which featured a strengthened airframe, beefier landing gear, reduced fuel capacity, and increased cargo payload. The plane involved in JAL 123 was a 747SR.
Edit: The 747SR is not to be confused with the 747SP, another special variant that was shortened and had longer range.
747SP.
A strengthened airframe that was compromised, proving just important it was.
@@NYVET48TFWSP is the short one, or I can say the dwarf version of 747. For example, the SOFIA from NASA.
@@NYVET48TFWno the SP was the opposite....shorter airframe....fewer passengers, longer range
@@stuartmiller7419Not defending Boeing. But it wasn’t Boeing that made this plane a time bomb waiting to go off. It was the AP mechanics who did a bad job on the patch AFTER the previous pilots had skid the rear on the runway.
These pilots flew a plane with almost no tail for 30 minutes, gave controllers important info, and recovered from a stall all while being in a hypoxic state. They truly did their best but unfortunately the bird was a ticking time bomb the moment that faulty repair was made. RIP to all those who passed and I hope the survivors are doing well.
Not hypoxic. The pilots have a greater oxygen supply than the passengers.
@@stacey4758 None of the crew put on oxygen masks, despite being aware of the explosive decompression. Pilots now are trained to grab their masks first, then worry about figuring out what just happened and getting the plane under control.
I'm not a pilot, but while listening to pilots talk about emergencies, I've always heard them say, "Fly the aircraft all the way to the scene of the crash", meaning don't stop trying to get the situation under control. God bless these pilots and passengers and all who have perished in accidents.
I come from a family of hysterics. Plane and ship captains just amaze me with their ability to remain calm. I have yet to hear any of them scream "we're all gonna die" through their tears, which is all you would hear if any of my people was behind the wheel.
I'm always surprised by the lack of cursing. Like the pilot said "It's the end" and my last words would have been "We're f*****" or "It's f*****"
Aviate
Navigate
Communicate
@@poutinedream5066 Pilots in general have my respect. I get nervous just driving on Arizona highways at night.
@@merlinsgirl9311 Depends on where the crew is from and how long before they hit the ground (or water).
In the USA (according to NTSB), the last words on a cockpit voice recorder are either a startled expletive or someone crying out for their mother.
Sitting watching this in an airport while I wait to board a 9 hour international flight. Fantastic stuff as always man.
God speed. I’ve flown over 20 times and I never get over that feeling! I am terrified of flying. Your life are in the hands of the people who put the plane together and maintain it! Many safe years of travels 😂
Don’t worry. You’re statistically in more danger in your car… Nine hours shmine schmours…
9 hours in coach? 😭
Brave
Hope your flight is going well😊
One of the victims in this crash was singer Kyu Sakamoto, who was known for the song "Ue o Muite Arukou" or "Sukiyaki" as its known outside Japan at the time.
Ue o muite arekou
(I look up as I walk)
I look up as I walk,
So that the tears won’t fall,
Remembering those spring days
And tonight I am all alone.
I look up as I walk,
Counting the stars with tearful eyes,
Remembering those summer days
And tonight I am all alone.
Happiness lies beyond the clouds.
Happiness lies above the sky.
I look up as I walk,
So that the tears won’t fall,
But the tears well up as I walk,
For tonight I am all alone.
Remembering those autumn days
And tonight I am all alone.
Sadness lies in the shadow of the stars.
Sadness lurks in the shadow of the moon.
I look up as I walk,
So that the tears won’t fall.
Though the tears well up as I walk,
For tonight I am all alone.
(Rokusuke Ei and Hachidai Nakamura 1961)
Sukiyaki was and still is, one of the most beautiful songs ever, and Kyu always looked like he loved to sing it. RIP, Kyu.
I was expecting a mention of Sakamoto and was a little surprised when it didn't happen.
Wow, Sukiyaki is one of my favourite Japanese songs, I didn't know that! Sad to know...
Supposedly he would normally always fly with ANA (All Nippon Airways) but there were no seats available. Unverified: He wrote a note saying (translated): "My beloved wife, Life with you is wonderful. Our children will grow up to be talented. I didn't expect that dinner would be our last meal. It's a pity that I will never see my dad again. It's really... until now. Thank you for your life. I didn't expect that dinner with you yesterday was the last parting. No matter what happened, my son, I beg you. Now at half past six, the plane is spinning and falling. My life so far is true. Very happy, thank you."
The disaster that was really two tragedies in one.The crash itself and the delayed rescue that could have saved more lives.
This story always makes me so angry about this rescue delay.
One of the most probably well-known passengers of this flight was Kyu Sakamoto recognized for the song "Sukiyaki" (Ue o Muite Arukō), along with a couple of other passengers who were able to write heartbreaking Isho (final letters) to their families.
The maintenance manager and the engineer who inspected the patched-up bulkhead and said it was airworthy also took their own lives.
The only Japanese song that was no. 1 in the USA and he was the only Asian music artist to top the charts until the South Korean group BTS made it big with Dynamite.
Insane how the flight crew kept the plane in the air for that long. They were heroes through and through.
Thanks for giving faces and names to the flight crew. They did all they could.
"It's the end...." Those last words on the cockpit voice recorder are haunting. I still can't believe that the Japanese government refused outside help. RIP to the passengers and crew
Sasaki was apparently being assessed to become a captain himself. I think it goes without saying that had this flight gone differently, he’d have more than earned that promotion.
I used to live on Yokota Air Base. I can't believe they refused the help. This was no time for national "pride"
Our reputation in Okinawa at that time was colored heavily by the allegations of our airmen repeatedly sexually assaulting the women followed by the AF preventing them from being investigated or prosecuted. I don't find that a good enough reason to refuse our help, but there was considerable sentiment we should have left altogether.
@@ydoomenaud genuinely interesting info that gives a clearer picture. So not just "national pride", but also "shitty national relations" killed those extra people.
That doesn't change the fact that the Japanese authorities let people die over their pride and the Japanese culture of saving face at the expense of everything else. It's quite bizarre the comments trying to find a way to blame Americans or "Western culture" for the disaster when all they did was have the audacity to offer to help.
This reminds me of the hotel walkway collapse that occurred because they used 2 beams instead of the original design of 1 beam and the load distribution caused a collapse.
It seems to be common across multiple engineering disciplines that you should not use 2 parts instead of one
the hyatt regency walkway collapse, yeah, you're right
The box beams were also installed the wrong way which made the hanger rod fold the one in setting off the collapse.
In a way, it reminds me of at least three other disasters due to either cutting corners, bad maintenance, or both.
1.) A theater collapse in DC during the 1920's in a snow storm.
2.) A bridge collapse in the last 1960's. (And really another one - or two - about 5-15 years ago.)
3.) A flight heading to Hawaii, were the top of the plane tore off.
Edit: Make that 6. There were two plane incidents in the 70's with a cargo door design, one ended fatally. And the flight Capt. Finch was one a few years after this (mentioned in the video) that crash had a flaw in the metal of one the engines that noone caught. (He and the flight crew saved most of the passengers.) Both he and the flight captain has since passed on so RIP to both.
And RIP to the flight crew of JAL 123 (they fought just as hard to save everyone aboard and gave their all and more to do so), and to ALL the victims of all of the aforementioned disasters.
Yes, and in most cases it's not the design that's faulty, but the implementation by contractors trying to save money.
@@wanna-be-thinker2377 The hubris of continually adding tarmac to a bridge over the years as though it wasn't engineered with a specific load in mind
The loss of the passengers that were able to survive is what infuriated me. Japan was offered help but refused it! Like come on and they were shocked when no one wanted to ride on the plane, yeah you’re responsible for your own actions.
The last words of the Captain is pretty sad I think you can hear it from the cockpit.
What’s amazing is that there were survivors though if rescued earlier more survivors could be rescued.
Correct, this was indeed a part of the video.
I'd say its more horrifying than amazing.
The crew's actions on board the plane were heroic. The situation was dire, yet they did what they could to try and get the plane back to the airport. The worst thing about this tragedy, is that more lives could, and should have been saved. RIP to all 520 victims
The deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history. Also, I know these are short documentaries but this does the crew a disservice by omitting how they experimented with spinning one engine up while throttling back the other in an attempt to level the plane, something they managed to maintain for quite a while before the crash, and which was the method used to control the DC-10 at Sioux City.
In 2004, the band Rammstein released their album Reise, Reise, the album art of which depicts a flight data recorder. The fourth song on the album (Dalai Llama) is about an aircraft which gets into trouble. On European releases of Reise, Reise, hidden in "negative time" before the first song, are the last 30 seconds of the CVR of Japan Airlines Flight 123.
I rmember hearing that the Souix City crew actually drew on the JAL incident. Peace to all involved in both.
I have the CD of Reise Reise with that little bit of recording at the beginning. You can hear the warning to pull up going off, and shortly after, you can hear the plane striking the trees.
I personally love when someone shares this kind of obscure trivia in the comments.
Thanks👍
The aircraft at Sioux City was a DC10...
@@cantliff9 Edited, thank you!
What amazes me is they were able to keep the plane in the air for 32 minutes before crashing,They put 4 flight crews in simulators and none of them could land the plane,an amazing feet of flying!
A terrible plane crash. From the very beginning, when the stabilizer comes off, it seems that a few more minutes and the plane will crash to the ground, but the pilots miraculously keep the plane in the air for half an hour. It seems that now there will be an emergency landing and everything will end well, but ...
Then it gets worse: the long arrival of help at the crash site, the investigation, the consequences...
Edit: much of the following is wrong. Sorry!
CORRECTION: The improper repair following the tail strike earlier in the plane's career was not performed by Boeing. It was carried out by Japan Airlines' own maintenance staff. It was merely Boeing's suggested repair procedure that they had tried to follow.
Presumably due to not having an appropriately sized sheet of aluminum on hand, they improvised in a way that cut the strength of a seam in half. They recorded in the plane's maintenance log that they'd followed the repair manual procedure, without noting their deviation, and the whole job was then covered by another sheet of aluminum that there'd generally be no reason to ever remove again. So nobody else could see that the correct procedure hadn't actually been followed.
In pictures of the plane that happened to be taken in the years between repair and crash, there are visible hints on the skin of the tail section that there was a leak in the repaired pressure bulkhead underneath, but evidently the connection was never made (until after the crash, obviously).
All reports I have seen, including from the FAA, state that Boeing made the repair. From the FAA " The airplane was repaired by a Boeing AOG team contracted to perform damage repair." (AOG is Airplane-On-Ground). JAL inspected it but was unable to see the plates because this area was not visible, bring sandwiched between plates. www.faa.gov/lessons_learned/transport_airplane/accidents/JA8119
Thank you, I have watched other documentaries on this crash & yes JAL did do the repairs, they did not follow the proper process however.
Thank you for saying this. Considering Boeing's recent history, I was about to blame them again.
@@DrakoCrowley Yeah, the timeliness of Boeing and safety screwups is most of the reason I though the otherwise small error was worth pointing out.
@@kirtreeves7777 JAL did not do the repairs, the other documentaries are incorrect. See below in comments where I reference the FAA report which specifically states that Boeing did the repairs..
THere's so much that is maddening about this disaster, and this would not be the last time a 747 would suffer the same issue with a bulkhead blowing out due to poor repair. The CVR from this accident is chilling, knowing there is nothing that the pilots can do at all and they were as much a victim as anyone else and were fighting to save a plane they believed was able to be landed safely
I don't think you need to teach crew and passengers about airline safety. But the shareholders and Boeing could use a reminder.
I saw the Boeing whistleblower mysteriously died, too
@@aimeem
Yes. 'Mysteriously'.
Yet not one mention of the complete failure of the Japanese government to rescue the survivors or even accept assistance to do so.
@@aimeem self deletion isn't all that mysterious.
@@SkunkApe407
Yes, because he definitely did it to himself. Absolutely.
This is always a rough one to hear about. The pilots did an amazing job given what happened. The plane didn't land that badly (it still crashed). Reports of people actually living through it. BUt left on the mountain by the Japanese government. Even after an American base was all ready and set to go help the people that were still alive. As they were listening to the whole thing. BUt were told by the Japanese they weren't needed as everything was being done to get to the crash.
This accident is still used as an example at Boeing of how repairs can go wrong and how critical clarity is for instructions we (engineers) give the mechanics/technicians doing the work.
Too bad the ethos at Boeing nowadays seems to be to ignore all that if it'll cost shareholders a nickel of their money.
@@petehealy9819 Didn't ask you leftoid
@@petehealy9819 #100 If they'd really learned from their mistakes, they wouldn't have planes falling apart in midair.
Did JA conduct the faulty repair or was it Boeing? People are claiming both in the comments.
@@vladimirenlow4388 nowadays its planes falling apart because of how they were built, not how they were repaired.
The photo taken onboard minutes before the crash haunts me to this day.
@@jennatolls904 Either you are a troll or illiterate. Neither seems good since you asked what they already stated. Kinda concerned there bud. 😅
Do we know that's a photo from the same plane? No text provided saying so...
@@johna.zoidberg3049 seems to me that you have no understanding of a joke and take yourself so seriously. you honestly think i’m asking what they already stated? i’m clowning them for thinking a photo is so haunting that its haunts them “to this day”
@@jennatolls904Well, maybe it does. A photo taken onboard a plane that crashed, by someone who was going to die in a few minutes? Pretty eerie and terrible stuff.
Look, just admit your joke didn't work, and sit down. Happens to the best of us.
@@jennatolls904 I wasn't aware there was an expiration date on imagining the horror and emotions these people suffered knowing they were going to die.
so sad that so many people died, even sadder that more could have survived had help arrived sooner, one thing amazing is that many pilots tried in the simulator, no one kept it in the air as long as the crew did, let alone get close to landing, R.I.P. to all the victims
This was the plane crash that inspired an strange and probably macabre interest in air disasters for me. The crew fought so hard to save their passengers.
Sudden decompression is absolutely terrifying. It's an instantaneous emergency that hypoxia makes nearly impossible to remedy.
That's not true. It's typically quite easy to get the aircraft to a lower altitude.
@RuminatingWizard assuming your oxygen delivery system works. Otherwise it's quite a tall order indeed lol
An avarage human has about 30-60 seconds of consciousness in the event of a decompression at normal cruising altitude. The moment that happens the pilots get an alarm to put on their oxygen masks, for the rest of the cabin the masks also come down. The pilots oxygen is seperated from the rest, it also lasts longer (oxygen masks get about 20min i think). If nothing else is damaged that is enough time to bring the plane below 10000 feet where the air is breathable
@@RuminatingWizard Not necessarily true. Maintaining control while dropping in altitude was something those pilots didn't have.
@@RuminatingWizard If you think that's easy to do while you're brain isn't getting enough oxygen such as in this case then you're painfully unaware of basic human biology. xD
So much eeriness surrounding this accident, especially with photos taken of the or aboard the aircraft that day, either before or during the doomed flight, as well as the footage taken of the aircraft before it's last ever departure.
The spotty image of the plane flying above and the other of hanging oxygen masks with a flight attendant grabbing a quick breath are bone chilling. Hoover on Pilot Debrief has done a piece covering the flight as well, and said there wasn't enough oxygen to go around at first and that's why the you see so many hanging and the flight attendant borrowing from a passenger. There was a huge hole in the back of the aircraft from the explosion of the bulkhead, but the cockpit crew was unaware initially and assumed they had lost an engine or two . Therefore, the crew performed emergency procedures for losing an engine, which included cutting power to the remaining engines. The loss of hydraulics systems eventually caused engine shutdowns, but their efforts to stabilize the aircraft did just the opposite. They stayed in the air for an incredible length of time, too, kind of drifting toward the mountain range ahead. How agonizing it must've been. My condolences to the families and friends for their loss.
IIRC, standard passenger O² supply on those craft was / is just 15 minutes, whereas the cockpit's separate gas system has enough to provide all core aviation crew (pilot, co-pilot / first officer, navigator, etc.) with ≥45 minutes (don't quote me; these're figures half-recalled from various Mentour Pilot forensic air disaster essays).
For me, one of the factors that imparts this story with that sense of true *vertiginous horror* unique to the handful of my personal "worst of the worst" aviation tragedies, is the fact that _no one in the cockpit ever donned an oxygen mask._ There's a grotesque irony to the crew being so consumed with the abject terror of their crisis that the very survival instinct driving them to single-mindedly focus on saving the plane blinded them to the simple but *absolute* necessity of putting on their O² masks.
I feel a hyper-specific kind of dread when thinking about harrowing "final moments" events; this unique species of unease and almost existential nausea -- and when I imagine the pilots' already impossible struggle to save hundreds of lives evilly compounded by the slow, insidious, but inevitable creep-in of hypoxic cognitive haze and disorientation, all suffused with pure animal fear and terminal despair, it's impossible to escape that sense of vicarious, "historical" dread.
Aviators, cabin crew, passengers, all in anguished delirium, white-knuckling their arm wrests in a sickeningly protracted death spiral -- and all _wholly certain of their imminent and guaranteed annihilation_ on a lonely mountainside -- is as authentic a "nightmare made reality" scenario as I can imagine, and indeed air disasters are one of my own nightmares' commoner scenarios.
What it must have been like to have suffered as they did.
Kelsey at 74 Gear and Captain Joe have talked a lot about tail strikes, which can significantly damage the aircraft. Both are 747 pilots. Captain Joe now flies for Cargolux.
Anyway, that's kind of off topic for this video, but anyone interested in aviation would enjoy their TH-cams.
About Captain Takahama’s last words - “もうダメ” (mou dame)
Interestingly, I’ve seen this misinterpretation of the translation in almost everything I’ve watched about this crash. I also tried looking through the Japanese version of the accident report and I didn’t find it there. (little note here: Japanese is my second language so please correct me if I’m wrong!!)
”This is the end” would be something like ”終わりだ” (owari da) or perhaps ”最後だ” (saigo da), but what he said was ”もうダメ”(mou dame)
もう (mou) can be used to say “already,” or that something is to the extent that it cannot be done anymore than it already is, and also often expresses resignation/frustration by the speaker.
ダメ (dame) means “no good” or “hopeless” or "useless"
So what Takahama is saying when he says もうダメ (mou dame,) it comes off meaning something more like
“It’s hopeless”
“It’s useless”
“That’s it, there’s nothing else we can do.”
What these pilots managed to do by keeping the plane in the air for as long as they did was amazingly brave, they didn’t give up until the very last second.
I've always held such high respect for these pilots ever since i heard about them. Yet you somehow manage to tell this story in such a way i haven't heard others tell it before (in a good way). Thank you for the wonderful video
Considering how quickly AA 587 (Nov 12, 2001, yes 2 months after 9/11) went down after it lost its stabilizer its amazing how they managed to keep it in the air for 30 minutes. You should do BOAC 911 (Mar 5, 1966) some time in the future, its a rare incident in which severe turbulence tore the place apart.
I think in this case a small piece of the fin was still hanging on, while on American 587 the entire thing detached. The reason for detachment was also different. On JAL it was the aft pressure bulkhead rupturing, while on American it was the First Officer's PIO of the rudder controls resulting in an already uncoordinated condition upon vertical stabilizer separation.
Japan Airlines Flight 123, also known as the JL123 incident, was a tragic aviation accident that occurred on August 12, 1985. The flight was a domestic route from Tokyo to Osaka, operated by a Boeing 747SR aircraft. Approximately 12 minutes into the flight, the aircraft experienced a sudden decompression due to a structural failure caused by an improper repair following a tailstrike incident seven years earlier.
Despite the loss of significant portions of the aircraft's control systems, the crew made valiant efforts to keep the plane in the air, but unfortunately, the aircraft eventually crashed into a mountain ridge in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. Tragically, out of the 524 passengers and crew on board, only four passengers survived the crash.
The JL123 incident remains one of the deadliest single-aircraft accidents in aviation history. It led to significant changes in aircraft maintenance procedures, emergency response protocols, and reinforced the importance of proper maintenance and regulatory oversight in aviation safety. The victims and their families are remembered, and the lessons learned from this tragedy continue to shape safety standards in the aviation industry.
There is no one better on TH-cam when it comes to the genre of true horrific events. I look forward to the videos every Tuesday morning. Thank you for your excellent retelling of events that many have never heard. This video is no exception.
Mentour Pilot is much more thorough in covering aviation accidents, as that's the main focus of his channel. There's other niche channels created by specialists who cover specific types of incidence as well. For a generalist, Fascinating Horror is fairly good, highlighting the biggest points to keep his videos short and concise.
What I think we all love about this channel is how respectful and careful he is in presenting the facts and telling the story. There's no clickbait, no sensationalism, no unnecessary drama like way too many other TH-cam channels desperate for clicks and likes. Respect.
@@marcussantiago Facts.
@@marcussantiago That's quite true. I only mentioned Mentour Pilot because he's a no nonsense commercial airline flight instructor who analyzes incident reports to teach new recruits how to not make the same mistakes, but also knows how to break down technical terms for the average viewer. His inside knowledge and professional approach makes him one of the best on the subject.
The only caveat is that he has paid sponsorships, which pays for his editors and production crew. That lets him make professional videos while still having a full time day job.
There are professionals on TH-cam who are dedicated to fairly representing their field without the hype and sensationalism. They're rare, but they're out there.
It is so enraging when the cause of an airline (or any) disaster is inadequate maintenance. Fyi, the one and only time the "Concord" crashed during service was due to improper maintenance on an airplane that took off just before the "Concord's" doomed flight, i.e., the shoddy maintenance resulted in a piece of metal, that was used in the inadequate maintenance of the plane in question, fell off onto the runway which would be struck by a tire on Concord's landing gear causing the tire to explode and debris piercing a fuel tank in the Concord resulting in an explosion of the fuel.
A perfect example of a flight crew not giving up even until their last breaths. Reminds me of the Alaskan Airlines flight that encountered a jackscrew failure. The pilots were attempting to fly upside down in a nose dive all the way down until they hit the ocean. Would love to hear you cover that one, too.
Bless them.
Watched a documentary about that one. The plane was doomed but the pilots never stopped trying all they could.
@@davidcox3076 yup. From the moment of jackscrew failure they really didn’t have a hope. But they never gave up even as they hung from their shoulder straps. The kind of pilots you WANT in the cockpit of your flights.
It still perplexes me how much disregard the government in Japan had to allow the survivors to die off because they thought there wouldn't be any.
Check airman Denny Fitch , Captain Al Haynes and flight crew pulled off the most incredible display of airmanship in the history of commercial aviation, United 232 July 19, 1989. No hydraulic control , no flaps, no slats, no aileron control.
Not only was this accident very tragic and easily preventable (by that, I mean that if the repair had been carried out correctly), but it was also THE deadliest SINGLE aircraft disaster in aviation history! The deadliest aviation disaster as a whole was the Tenerife airport disaster in 1977 (coincidentally, that accident also involved Boeing 747s).
Rest in peace the people who perished in both disasters.
I remember when this happened, and it haunted me then thinking of the survivors hearing rescue aircraft but having to wait until the next morning for help to come. You did a great job on this...kudos...
"Boeing repairs done improperly"
That statement doesn't even bat an eyelid now....
When was the last plane crash in the US? Boeing has an incredible record of safety.
@@benjaminmorton4958 7th of May, 2020, involving a Boeing 737-700 in Austin, Texas. 1st of January, 2024, involving a non-Boeing airliner, the Airbus A220-100 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Of all recorded crashes in US history, Boeing has a slight lead in front of McDonnell-Douglass for the most crashes, with many of these Boeing crashes appearing in more recent years, the timeframe in which quality control is alleged to have dropped significantly, as indicated by the original comment.
Try again.
@@benjaminmorton4958 There should be none, if Boeing done their job in first place. In fact, you shouldn't even had such idea, if Boeing actually think people instead of money first.😅
@@lemagicbaguette1917 None of what you said was an actual crash. The truth is it has been decades since a major airline accident in the US, and Boeing's safety is a big reason for that.
@@benjaminmorton4958 you're right, I read "incident" instead of "crash". However, this does not change the fact that Boeing has the largest collection of American incidents, fatal or otherwise, crash or otherwise. These incidents are also very commonly due to maintenance or design errors.
Small correction: Hypoxia induces a feeling of euphoria, not anxiety, making it especially dangerous to flight crews. The better you feel, the less likely you are to recognize , process, and understand that you are hypoxic.
It's truly amazing that anyone survived the crash.
Man I was waiting for this one…the crew was incredible. They kept that tailless plane airborne in ways no other pilot has ever been able to recreate on a simulator. Scary how an incident and complacency can result in such disaster 7 years later. RIP.
Reminiscent of the Hyatt Regency Walkway collapse ... an engineering mistake led to disaster.
The absolutely Herculean efforts of the Pilots to keep this plane in the air can not be overstated.
"Disaster Breakdown" did an in depth analysis of this scenario, if you want to know more about just how insane it was.
well told. I really can't say enough about how impressed I am with how you fit the disasters into context- what lead up to this happening and how the disaster impacted the world going forward. I find your videos to be the best and most trustworthy on youtube.
The way this channel covers the history of the event, and how all relevant details are covered before covering the disaster itself, is flawless. There is so much detail, one really gets an idea of the steps leading to the tragedy.
Do yourself a favor, and don't listen to the CVR recording from the flights final minutes, its haunting me since
Thanks.❤🩹
I second that. One of the most disturbing and haunting CVR I've listened to.
Thanks.❤
I don't know what infuriates me the most; the stupid rejection of help for the rescue operation or the halfhazard "repair" that on its own already got more that 400 people killed.
Keep in mind, JAL maintenance crews had quite a few years to discover the botched repair.
Just the smoothest music, mate. Love it. Thanks for all the hard work and excellent episodes. Take care.
Included amongst those who perished on that terrible flight was Sakamoto, Kyu of "Sukiyaki" fame. He was not only a singer though, he was also an excellent actor and a revered Japanese pop culture icon.
Actually the repair was done by JAL mechanics. Boeing did not repair the tail-strike.
Letting those people die. Criminal. Why not utilize all resources?
You obviously do not understand Japanese culture.
@@61rampy65 nope. I live in Cambodia.
As @61rampy65 hints at it's a cultural thing with some Asian cultures and the concept of face. There are other aircraft crashes where junior officers don't speak up to stop the captain from fatal mistakes because of culture.
@@hansjurgen I know all about saving face, I live in Cambodia. Its one of the stupidest cultural things.
Another high-quality and respectful vid. Thank you, sir.
Oh I caught a video early! Love your channel!
Inexplicably the narrator neglects to mention that this was in fact the worst single plane crash in aviation history, or that amongst the dead was Kyu Sakamoto the singer of the hit song Sukiyaki. For those interested there are much more complete coverages of this event on YT, including the actual desperate and terrifying voice recordings between the cockpit and control tower.
Kyu Sakamoto was killed on this flight.
Too sad for Japanese music industry at the time of Kyu Sakamoto's died in plane crash 😢😢😢😢
Wow. He was cool and so was his hit song.
Sukiyaki is one of my favorite songs
Thank you, guys
Sukiyaki was the only Japanese song that was a no. 1 hit in America and we never had any more Asian people top the charts until BTS with Dynamite.
This made me cry. “It’s the end” Similar last words are said by other pilots before a crash. 😢
you have been going hard with your upload schedule. Thank you!
This is incorrect. The 747 was NEVER sent to Boeing. There were specific repair instructions from Boeing which the JAL maintenance workers FAILED to adhere to. JAL maintenance did not follow correct repair process leading to the failure.
For another viewpoint - that of a Japanese journalist (the author himself was present at the crash) - but made into a novel, try Hideo Yokoyama's "17". It's available in an English translation.
I am so glad I found this channel. Great narration and content 👍
I have heard this story so many times, and it never gets old, and amazingly you presented a whole load of new information I had never heard before.
I think you were a little harsh on the JAL crew. Their feat of airmanship was absolutely INCREDIBLE !
The Deadly Sin committed by the Japanese here was pride considering the US offered help because they had night time capabilities for rescue but the Japanese declined their help, leading to more deaths.
It's absurd that the Japanese government refused aid from the American airforce, many more people could have survived if they weren't so prideful.
That time of the week. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing this with me 😊😊
I didnt know Boeing had made the repair....i thot it was JAL who did and ultimately incorrectly.
Boeing didn't make the repair, don't know why this keeps being stated as a fact. They did advise Japan Airlines on how to do it, but they botched it!
The aircraft rabbit hole exploration has begun.....
3:13 - Air humidity is already water vapor and water in its gaseous form is invisible. What happens during decompression is water vapor turning into droplets of liquid water because of condensation, which is visible and what people usually calls "steam", like when you breath out in a cold day.
August 1985 was a terrible time for aviation, with multiple fatal accidents in the same month.
August 2nd - Delta Flight 191 crashed at DFW Airport with the loss of 137 lives. One of the fatalities was Don Estridge who invented the first IBM PC
August 12th - JAL 123
August 22nd - British Airtours flight 28M caught fire during takeoff, with 55 deaths
August 25th - Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 crashes in Auburn, Maine, with 8 deaths
There is a wonderful video on TH-cam which is a simulation on this event that includes conversations between the pilots and the tower as well. By "wonderful" I mean realistic, therefore horrendous....
1- You’re telling me there’s not oxygen masks in the cockpit?
2- Each family received $14,615.00. That’s ludicrous
That's a hell of a lot more than in most cases featured by FH, sadly. It would have been more 30 years ago (unless he accounted for inflation during the conversions, he didn't say) but still not what a human life should be worth. Though really it should have come from Boeing.
Re the oxygen masks, I'm sure there would be, but I'm not sure how much oxygen those systems are designed to provide. They were in the air for half an hour so it might have just not been enough.
Hi, I wrote the script.
Seems he cut it out, but the crew suffered hypoxia before they could deploy their masks. It was brought up by the crew, but they didn't use them. Again, likely because the hypoxia.
There are now but I’m not sure at time there was
@@MilesL.auto-train4013 Hi! Did he also cut out the part about AP mechanics being responsible for the inadequate doubler plate repair and not Boeing engineers?
Unfortunately, and with absolutely no finger-pointing/offense to you, but this is why covering a complex tragedy in 10 minutes is not ideal. That tends to leave a lot of details out and people either walk away with the wrong info or not enough info.
I found your channel 2 months ago. I just finished this video and have now seen all of them. 215. Well done!
I enjoy this so much! Amazing content, best wishes to you and your future projects! 🌻
It's 5:30 AM here in the US and I'm watching one of my favorite channels, sipping my favorite coffee. I don't think I've ever been THIS early before! I could get used to this....
Poor souls...
Pour soles, indeed.
Those photos from both within the cabin and of the plane going down with it's component missing are haunting. The rescue delay only makes it worse.
It's amazing to me how many mechanical engineers think that they can use two pieces instead of one and the stress load will remain the same. A similar issue is what caused the collapse of part of a hotel
How could Japan REFUSE assistance to save more people?! 💔 So many more people died because they wanted to handle things themselves!
Pride, essentially.
Just like Russia refusing international assistance when one of their submarines, ( Kursk ) sank after multiple internal explosions.
A fair number of the crew survived for quite some time after, ( days ) but Russias refuseal of assistance and their own bungled rescue efforts caused the doomed crews demise.
Not only pride. Japan and the US have a more complicated history that you might know. From the black ships of Admiral Perry that forced Japan to open up to the world to atoms bombs and finally an occupation. The US still have a military base on Okinawa which has caused a lot of issues including an awful incident in 1995 where three US seamen abducted a 12 year old girl.
@@stevewhisperer6609 I suspect it's relevant that it was a US base offering assistance. They have a complicated relationship with the US, given the US had dropped two atomic bombs on them only forty years before.
@@molybdomancer195 Well then maybe they should've turned down aid under the Marshall Plan after WWII.
@@littlebear274 I think that's irrelevant (well, in this situation). By then the two countries were on very good terms. Of course, I could be wrong.
Someone please explain how you can tell if someone on the ground is alive or dead from inside a helicopter in flight?
You can't, which is why the personnel at Yokota Air Base offered to helicopter in medical personnel. The Japanese helicopter crew looked at the crash site and figured nobody could survive that.
Not sure why the Marines kept being mentioned since it is a USAF overseas duty station, but this is the sort of thing PJs (pararescue jumpers, Air Force combat medics) would have been perfect for.
Chopper lowers the PJs and supplies on a cable, the PJs stabilize survivors and report the ground conditions, ground forces know what they're getting into for the rescue operation, and best of all nobody's shooting at you.
It's despicable when countries refuse help from other countries. They're not doing everything that's possible to help their own people, they're just doing what they can do by themselves and that's not enough.
I would love for you to make expanded editions of your earliest videos, since a lot of them are much shorter.
Love your videos!
What I found the most criminal was JAL refusing help and not going in to help straight away. It cost the lives of FORTY people, just under 10% of those who died.
It's not JAL that refused the rescue help but the JP government itself.
@@czaczaczar Whatever. Help was refused and people died. It was horrendous. I cannot imagine surviving something so horrific, thinking you were going to live and then dying in the cold and darkness.
The same Boeing that just had a guy whacked.
Just another reason not to fly on their planes again
If it's Boeing, I'm not going.
I'm not a Boeing fan any longer, but let's look at this through a non-jaundiced eye. Boeing may have screwed up the repair but JAL's mantenance team had some 7 years to detect the problem.
Who was 'wacked' ?
@@mollymouse4900
The Boeing employee who released a bunch of rather damning information about Boeing's very poor safety practices in recent years... Allegedly he suddenly developed a strong sense of loyalty to his former employer and simply couldn't handle living with the guilt of what he'd done... Right before he was going to tell an enquiry all about what he knew. Right outside...
China Airlines flight 611 crashed for an almost identical reason, but was less fortunate in that the entire plane practically exploded. These accidents are always tragic and I could not imagine the horror on board these flights.
I LOVE this channel ❤