All Nippon Airways (ANA) Flight 58 was a Japanese domestic flight from

Sapporo ( ain, サッ・ポロ・ペッ, Satporopet, lit=Dry, Great River) is a city in Japan. It is the largest city north of Tokyo and the largest city on Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of the country. It ranks as the fifth most populous city ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, operated by

All Nippon Airways , also known as ANA (''Ē-enu-ē'') or is an airline in Japan. Its headquarters are located in Shiodome City Center in the Shiodome area of Minato ward of Tokyo. It operates services to both domestic and international destinations and had mo ...

(ANA). On 30 July 1971, at 02:04 local time, a

Japan Air Self-Defense Force The , , also informally referred to as the Japanese Air Force, is the air and space branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, responsible for the defense of Japanese airspace, other air and space operations, cyberwarfare and electronic warfa ...

(JASDF) F-86F Sabre jet fighter collided with the

Boeing 727 The Boeing 727 is an American narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavy 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter flight lengths from smaller airpo ...

airliner operating the flight, causing both aircraft to crash."''161 Die In Worst Aviation Disaster''", The Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, July 30, 1971, page 1 All 162 people aboard the airliner were killed, while the Sabre pilot, a trainee with the JASDF, freed himself from his airplane after the collision and parachuted to safety. This incident led to the resignation of both the head of Japan's

Defense Agency The is an executive department of the Government of Japan responsible for preserving the peace and independence of Japan, and maintaining the country’s national security and the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The ministry is headed by the ...

and the JASDF

chief of staff The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supporti ...

Aircraft

The ANA airliner was a Boeing 727-281The aircraft was a Boeing 727-200 model. Boeing assigns a unique code for each company that buys one of its aircraft and applies it as an

infix An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with ''adfix,'' a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix. When marking text for int ...

to the model number at the time the aircraft is built. All Nippon's code is ''81'', hence "727-281". with

registration Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...

; it was three months old at the time of the accident. The JASDF aircraft, belonging to the 1st Air Wing at Matsushima Airbase, was a Mitsubishi F-86F Sabre, a Japanese-built version of

North American Aviation North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included: the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F ...

's famous fighter jet, with tail number 92-7932. At the time of the accident, the F-86F was one of the primary aircraft in the JASDF's inventory.

Passengers and crew

Most of the airline passengers came from

Fuji Fuji may refer to: Places China * Fuji, Xiangcheng City (付集镇), town in Xiangcheng City, Henan Japan * Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan * Fuji River * Fuji, Saga, town in Saga Prefecture * Fuji, Shizuoka, city in Shizuoka Prefectur ...

Shizuoka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...

and were returning from a trip to Hokkaido. Of the passengers, 125 were in a tour group made up of members of a society for relatives of Japanese servicemen killed in World War II. The pilot of Flight 58, Saburo Kawanishi, 41, had more than 8,000 hours of flying experience. He transmitted a brief emergency call between the time of the collision and the aircraft's disintegration.

Sequence of events

ANA Flight 58 departed

Chitose Airport , is a Japan Air Self-Defense Force base located in Chitose, Hokkaidō, adjacent to New Chitose Airport. It is the JASDF's primary base in northern Japan and tasked with monitoring Japan's maritime borders with Russia. It was also Hokkaidō' ...

near Sapporo, with 155 passengers and a crew of 7 on board for a domestic flight to Tokyo's

Haneda International Airport , officially , and sometimes called as Tokyo Haneda Airport or Haneda International Airport , is one of two international airports serving the Greater Tokyo Area, the other one being Narita International Airport (NRT). It serves as the primary ...

. After takeoff, the aircraft climbed to its cruising altitude of about . Meanwhile, a 22-year-old JASDF trainee pilot and his instructor were practicing

air combat manoeuvring Air combat manoeuvring (also known as ACM or dogfighting) is the tactical art of moving, turning and/or situating one's fighter aircraft in order to attain a position from which an attack can be made on another aircraft. Air combat manoeuvres ...

in their two Sabres near

Morioka is the capital city of Iwate Prefecture located in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan. On 1 February 2021, the city had an estimated population of 290,700 in 132,719 households, and a population density of . The total area of the city is . ...

, northern

Honshū , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separa ...

. The trainee, unaware of the ANA aircraft, was told by his instructor to break away from Flight 58 as it approached and banked left to avoid it, but was already too late and moments later, the leading edge of the Sabre's right wing struck the Boeing's left

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail (empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyroplane ...

at an altitude of . The damage to the Boeing's tail caused it to go out of control; it entered a steep dive and disintegrated in mid-air, the wreckage impacting near the town of

Shizukuishi is a town located in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 16,263 in 6354 households, and a population density of 27 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Geography Shizukuishi is located in the Ōu M ...

Iwate Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It is the second-largest Japanese prefecture at , with a population of 1,210,534 (as of October 1, 2020). Iwate Prefecture borders Aomori Prefecture to the north, Akita Prefectur ...

. All 162 passengers and crew were killed. The Sabre, having lost its right wing, entered a spin that prevented the trainee pilot from ejecting, so he unbuckled his safety belts and freed himself from the aircraft. He deployed his parachute and landed safely. The Sabre plunged into a nearby rice paddy.

Aftermath

The JASDF pilots were later tried and the trainee was acquitted on a charge of involuntary

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th cen ...

. However, the instructor was found guilty of

criminally negligent In criminal law, criminal negligence is a surrogate state of mind required to constitute a ''conventional'' (as opposed to strict liability, ''strictly liable'') offense. It is not, strictly speaking, a (Law Latin for "guilty mind") because i ...

manslaughter and sentenced to three years in prison, with a three-year suspension. He also lost his job. Keikichi Masuhara, Director-General of the Defense Agency (now

Ministry of Defense {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

) and General Yasuhiro Ueda, Chief of the Air Staff, resigned afterward to take responsibility for the incident. The loss of Flight 58 was the deadliest aviation disaster at the time, surpassing the 1968 Kham Duc C-130 shootdown and the 1969 crash of Viasa Flight 742, and remained so until the crash of

Aeroflot Flight 217 Aeroflot Flight 217 was a non-scheduled international passenger flight from Orly Airport in Paris to Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, with a stopover at Shosseynaya Airport (now Pulkovo Airport) in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). O ...

thirteen months later. It remains the deadliest accident suffered by All Nippon Airways, the second-deadliest involving a Boeing 727, behind

Mexicana Flight 940 Mexicana may refer to: * a woman born in Mexico * Mexicana de Aviación Compañía Mexicana de Aviación, S.A. de C.V. (usually shortened to Mexicana de Aviación or simply Mexicana) was Mexico's oldest airline and one of the List of airli ...

, and the third-deadliest on Japanese soil behind

Japan Airlines Flight 123 Japan Air Lines Flight 123 (JAL123) () was a scheduled domestic Japan Air Lines passenger flight from Haneda Airport in Tokyo to Itami International Airport in Osaka. On August 12, 1985, the Boeing 747SR operating this flight suffered a sudden ...

and

China Airlines Flight 140 China Airlines Flight 140 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport (serving Taipei, Taiwan) to Nagoya Airport in Nagoya, Japan.China Airlines is based in Taiwan. Air China is the flag carrier for the ...

Notes

References

External links

*
昭和47年度運輸白書 - III 航空第2章航空事故 - 運輸省
" 972 White Paper on Transportation --III Aviation Chapter 2 Aviation Accidents --Ministry of Transport {{Aviation accidents and incidents in 1971 1971 in Japan Aviation accidents and incidents in 1971 Aviation accidents and incidents in Japan Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 727 Mid-air collisions Mid-air collisions involving airliners Mid-air collisions involving military aircraft All Nippon Airways accidents and incidents Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error July 1971 events in Asia History of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force