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: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-R54kp8cP_LM.html
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.
@@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.
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...
@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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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....
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
@@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
@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
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
"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
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 😂
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)
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."
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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!
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.
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 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.
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...
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 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.
@@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.
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
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.
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
@@SpicyTexan64 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.
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
There is no one better on RU-vid 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 RU-vid channels desperate for clicks and likes. Respect.
@@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 RU-vid who are dedicated to fairly representing their field without the hype and sensationalism. They're rare, but they're out there.
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.
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.
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 RU-vids.
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...
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.
@@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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
when you started with the tail strike incident and said "several people were injured", I was like "this will get much worse somehow" and oh boy it did 😬
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.
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 !
Good video. One correction: The fog is not the cabin air turning into water vapor. It comes from the sudden drop in pressure/temperature and the cabin air could no longer hold onto the water diffused in it. This is exactly the same effect that causes fog on the ground, but it happens almost instantly.
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.
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
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 remember that one of the results of this accident was that now rescuers go immediately to the crash site to search for survivors. Because several of the deceased were shown to have injuries that could have been survivable IF they had been gotten to in time.
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.
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....
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
Excellent video once again. I do, however, have one small correction. Investigators actually revealed that two plates were required but when the repairs were done, they incorrectly used only one. And they predicted that it would fail after 10,000 flights. However, on that day in 1985 that same aircraft took off for the 12,319th time before disaster struck. Rest in peace to the 520 souls that perished. 🙏🙌
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.
There is a wonderful video on RU-vid 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....
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.
@@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 worst part of this tragedy is that there were survivors that died due to the help offered that was turned away and delayed rescue. So thirty six survivors died and that was unacceptable. I hope people learned from this and never repeat turning down help when needed for an accident.
