Original subtitles

NARRATOR: This is the story of one

of the most tragic incidents in aviation history--

of how a jumbo jet goes berserk, plunging up and down

at 24,000 feet, and how an innocent mistake made

years earlier puts over 500 lives at risk,

and how investigators literally stumble

on the reason behind the biggest

single air crash in history.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Ladies and gentlemen,

we are starting our approach.

We lost both engines.

PILOT: Mayday.

Mayday.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Brace for impact!

I think I lost one.

MAN: Investigation started.

MAN: It's gonna crash!

NARRATOR: Tokyo, Japan, August 12, 1985.

In Japan, it's the eve of Obon, when people traditionally

honor their ancestors, often returning to the place

of birth for family reunions.

Tokyo's Haneda Airport is crowded with thousands

trying to get home.

On the tarmac, jumbo jets are lining up.

Air travel is so popular here that Japan

Airlines has to use 747s even for

its short internal flights.

Tokyo Air Traffic Control handles all aircraft

over central Japan, including those on their way to

and from the city's two big airports--

Haneda and Narita.

It's 6 o'clock in the evening.

But the rush won't be over for hours.

Crowded passenger lists and busy controllers

make it a typical holiday weekend.

Roger, approved as you request.

Cathay 456, turn right on heading 250 prime

and maintain flight level 240.

NARRATOR: At Haneda Airport, Japan Airlines Flight 123

is boarding.

Among the passengers is young Yumi Ochiai.

She's actually a flight attendant for Japan Airlines.

But today, she's off duty.

You mean takes a seat four rows from the back of the plane.

At 6:12 in the evening, Flight 123

takes off, heading for the industrial city of Osaka,

250 miles to the west.

It filled almost a capacity--

509 passengers and a crew of 15.

Japan 123, contact Tokyo departure.

Roger, Japan Air 123.

Air 123--

NARRATOR: Captain Masami Takahama is 49 years old

and one of the airline's senior training captains.

On this flight, he'll be handling the radio

and keeping an eye on the first officer who's

sitting in the captain's seat.

Yutaka Sasaki is flying the plane.

He's hoping for promotion to captain.

Hiroshi Fukuda, a veteran flight engineer,

is the third man on the flight deck.

MASAMI TAKAHAMA: Tokyo departure,

Japan Air 123 passing 800.

NARRATOR: JAL 123's route will take it south over Honshu Bay,

then southwest along the coast, until finally

taking a sharp right turn to land in Osaka.

The flight will take 54 minutes.

Flight 123 is leaving Tokyo behind,

climbing to 24,000 feet.

12 minutes into this short flight, the plane's black box

shows that all is going well.

Hello, Pat.

What's the problem?

Someone wants to go to the restroom.

Shall I let him?

NARRATOR: The plane's black box records a routine request

from a passenger.

He wants to use the bathroom before the seat

belt light is turned off-- - Be careful, please.

NARRATOR: --an ordinary-- - Yes.

NARRATOR: --request on a routine day.

Something exploded.

NARRATOR: Air is rushing out of the cabin.

The oxygen masks drop down automatically

when the air pressure falls.

NARRATOR: The explosion, the sudden loss

of pressure in the cabin, there must

be a hole in the aircraft.

- Gear door. - Check gear.

Gear. - What?

Check gear.

YUTAKA SASAKI: Gear.

NARRATOR: The pilot's first thought is that the landing

gear doors have blown off.

Squawk 77?

NARRATOR: 770 is the emergency code.

When the crew radios this code to the ground,

air traffic control will know the plane is in trouble.

Every plane on the controller screen

carries a label, giving the plane's identity.

Suddenly, the label beneath Flight 123 changes.

Someone in the cockpit has keyed in the emergency signal.

Fasten your seat belt. Seat belt, please.

NARRATOR: The plane's crew members are baffled.

They know only that there's been a loud noise, some sort

of explosion, a subsequent drop in cabin pressure,

and a growing loss of control.

Their instruments offer no clues to the mystery.

Engines?

All engines OK.

NARRATOR: Ominously, the pilots can't

get the plane to respond.

It's dropping!

Right turn.

Right turn!

Hydraulic pressure!

It's dropping!

NARRATOR: The plane's flight controls

are powered by hydraulic pressure--

the elevator, which makes the plane go up and down;

the rudder and ailerons which make it turn.

On a big modern jet, all these are too heavy to operate

with cables and levers.

Instead, they are controlled by hydraulic fluid, which flows

in pipes around the aircraft.

It's the lifeblood of the plane.

MASAMI TAKAHAMA: Tokyo, Japan Air 123

request immediate-- trouble.

Request return back to Haneda.

Over.

Roger, approved as your request.

Turn right to heading 090.

Put the mask on secured.

Put the bags around you like this.

Don't bank so much.

Turn it back.

It won't go back.

NARRATOR: Nothing seems to be working.

All the controls are dead.

They are 24,000 feet up in the air--

Descend?

NARRATOR: --traveling at nearly 330 miles per hour

and unable to control the plane.

Turn right, descend.

NARRATOR: In the growing uncertainty of the situation,

the pilots know they need to get down fast.

The controller is puzzled.

Instead of making the anticipated 180-degree turn

back to the airport, the plane now veers off its course

but not towards Haneda.

No, no.

123, negative.

Negative.

Negative.

Please confirm that you are declaring emergency.

That's right?

That's affirmative.

Request the nature of your emergency.

Hydraulic pressure all lost.

All lost?

No, look.

All lost?

Yes!

The company-- please, make a request to the

company, please.

You want to make a pass?

NARRATOR: The crew seems paralyzed

and doesn't radio the airline or answer the tower.

The officials on the ground don't know that the plane

has lost its hydraulic power.

But their screens tell them it's flying erratically

and is possibly out of control.

Right turn, descent.

Look at his altitude--

up and down.

Up and down.

What now?

Our control!

Put your heart into it or it'll stall!

NARRATOR: The hydraulics failure

has caused a serious problem.

For the last few minutes, the plane has begun

flying in an alarming pattern.

First, it climbs steeply then tips over

and goes into a terrifying dive of 4,000 feet only

to waddle off and begin to climb again.

This repeats itself over and over again.

The pilots cannot understand this bizarre behavior.

And they are powerless to stop it.

Tokyo Area Control, August 12, 1985, the controller

receives an emergency signal from a jumbo jet that left

Haneda Airport 13 minutes ago.

MASAMI TAKAHAMA: Tokyo, Japan Air

123 request immediate trouble.

Request return back to Haneda.

Over.

Put the oxygen masks, please.

NARRATOR: In the cabin, confusion and panic

spread like wildfire.

Airline personnel are trained to take charge in a crisis.

Please--

NARRATOR: And passenger Yumi Ochiai helps

out even though off duty.

--before the children!

NARRATOR: At Tokyo Control, the controller is

now joined by his supervisor.

JAL 123, he's declared an emergency,

says it's uncontrollable.

He says he wants to go back to Haneda.

But his heading is all wrong.

He can't seem to turn.

Get him to Nagoya.

That will be the easiest.

It's a straight line.

NARRATOR: The best solution would be for the plane

to switch course to Nagoya Airport, which

is 80 miles straight ahead.

But they need to start descending

immediately if they're going to land there.

Right, your position 72, 7-2 miles to Nagoya.

Can you run that Nagoya?

Negative.

Request back to Haneda.

It's the wrong runway.

NARRATOR: The captain wants to try to get back to Haneda.

It's a large airport, ideally suited for a jumbo 747

in an emergency.

But it's in the opposite direction.

If he can get it down--

123, can you descend?

Roger.

NARRATOR: If a black box shows that

he doesn't descend, without control of the aircraft,

they can't.

In the thin atmosphere at this altitude,

the passengers are finding it difficult to breathe.

People without oxygen masks may soon become unconscious.

The situation worsens as some of the masks at the back

of the plane ran out of oxygen. It's been five

minutes since the explosion.

And a flight attendant is finally

able to call the cockpit with news of what's

happening in the plane.

Crew--

Phone.

Yes, what is it?

Is it in the rear?

NARRATOR: The flight attendant tells the engineer

that the explosion has occurred in the rear of the plane

and may have come from the baggage compartment.

HIROSHI FUKUDA: Ah, so it's the baggage compartment

further to the rear.

Listen, right now, the baggage compartment right at the back

is collapsed.

I think we'd better descend.

NARRATOR: They need to get down quickly before the passengers

become unconscious.

But the captain seems to be struck by a strange paralysis.

All the passengers are using their masks.

Shall we defend a little?

NARRATOR: The captain does not reply.

It's possible that by now, he and his crew

are suffering from hypoxia or lack of oxygen to the brain.

YUTAKA SASAKI: The R5, Pat?

NARRATOR: At this altitude, the oxygen in their blood

starts to fall.

First, their judgment may become impaired.

Eventually, they may lose consciousness.

I think we'd better make an emergency descent.

Yes.

Shall we use our masks too?

YUTAKA SASAKI: We better.

HIROSHI FUKUDA: I think we better use the oxygen mask.

Yes.

NARRATOR: But they don't put on their masks.

No one knows why.

It might be indecision or hypoxia beginning

to cloud their judgment.

Japan Airlines and Tokyo Flight Operations

have been alerted to the emergency

but are as mystified as everyone else in the ground.

All they know is that over 500 lives are at stake.

It's their job to try to diagnose the problem

and come up with a solution while the plane is in the air.

This is Japan Air Tokyo.

Tokyo Control said they received

an emergency call from you?

Listen, right now, the R5 door has broken.

Roger, is the captain returning to Tokyo?

What?

Can you return to Haneda?

Just a moment.

We are making an emergency descent.

We'll contact you again in a little while.

Keep monitoring us, please.

Roger.

R5 door.

Could it have come off?

NARRATOR: If the door has come off,

that could mean an explosive decompression of the cabin

as the air rushes out.

Passengers may have been sucked out of the aircraft

thousands of feet in the air.

And if the door hit the tail of the aircraft,

it could have damaged it.

The tail keeps the planes stable.

Its rudder and elevators make the plane go up and down

or side to side.

If the tail is damaged, flight operations will

be powerless to assist them.

In Tokyo, news that a Japan Airlines

jumbo jet is in trouble has leaked almost immediately.

Japanese television is already breaking

into regular programming with live interviews.

Someone saw the crippled jet fly overhead.

INTERPRETER (ON TV): I knew the plane was in trouble,

he is saying.

It was swaying back and forth.

Then it disappeared in a cloud.

NARRATOR: Flight 123's meandering route

has put it in range of an American Air Force base

at Yokota, on the northern outskirts of Tokyo.

An American controller there has overheard

the conversations between the plane

and Tokyo Air Traffic Control.

He wants to help to offer Yokota Runway for landing.

Japan Air 123--

Japan Air 123, Yokota approach.

If you hear me, contact Yokota.

NARRATOR: The pilots are preoccupied and don't respond.

Since they've lost all normal control of the plane,

they're now testing the throttles to see what happens.

They can make the plane go faster or slower.

At least, they have speed at their command.

As they experiment, they find that if they push

the throttles forward when the plane is diving,

making the engines go faster, it

actually makes the plane come out of a dive

and brings the nose up.

And if they pull back the throttles

when it's climbing, slowing the engines,

the nose tips and begins to dive.

These actions are the opposite of what

a pilot would normally do.

But it seems to work.

And they begin to flatten out the roller coaster motion.

Then by applying more thrust to the engines on the left side

of the aircraft, they managed to slowly

turn the plane right in the general direction of Tokyo.

But their luck runs out.

In the frantic juggling of throttles,

the pilots get out of step.

It drives the 747 into a frenzy.

Hold that.

HIROSHI FUKUDA: How about gear down?

Gear down!

YUTAKA SASAKI: Start with the gear down.

NARRATOR: Lowering the landing gear should slow the plane

down and make it more stable.

It doesn't work.

YUTAKA SASAKI: Should I go with the alternate?

NARRATOR: For safety, 747s employ an electrically run

system separate from the hydraulics

that can lower the landing gear in an emergency.

While the engines are turning, they

still have electric power.

Lowering the landing gear help stabilize the plane.

The drag of the undercarriage has a dampening

effect on the pitching motion.

Right.

NARRATOR: But it also destroys the directional control

they were getting by applying more power

to one side of the aircraft.

Max power.

NARRATOR: Close to Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan,

the plane makes an abrupt turn to the right

and begins a terrifying dive.

The plane is falling at 3,000 feet a minute,

twice the normal rate of descent.

We're going down.

It's heavy.

Take the wheel all the way.

All the way. It's all the way.

Heavy.

HIROSHI FUKUDA: Hit the gear down!

YUTAKA SASAKI: Gear is down!

There is no need for alarm.

NARRATOR: The plane's black box records

the flight attendant still trying to calm the passengers.

Japan Air 123 uncontrollable.

And he's going to hit the mountain.

MAN (OVER RADIO): Tokyo Control.

Tokyo Control.

Good day to you, sir.

This is--

All station-- all station except the Japan Air 123, keep

silent until further advised.

MASAMI TAKAHAMA: Uncontrollable!

Understood.

Do you wish to contact--

Stay with us, please.

Stay with us!

NARRATOR: Just as suddenly, the plane comes out of its dive.

They've dropped over 10,000 feet.

They're now surrounded by mountains.

But at least there's more oxygen at this altitude.

The pilots have been fighting the plane for an intense 22

minutes since the explosion.

It's maybe hopeless.

The hydraulic fluid is all gone!

MASAMI TAKAHAMA: It's uncontrollable!

AUTOMATED VOICE: Terrain. Terrain.

Hey, mountain! Look out!

Don't hit the mountain!

Power!

NARRATOR: Applying maximum power in order to lift

the nose is the only option.

We're going to hit it!

Right!

- Break!

Power!

Power!

Keep trying!

NARRATOR: In their efforts to control the plane,

they've allowed the speed to drop too

much to escape the mountain.

They need maximum power to generate

more speed and more lift.

Stick with it.

It's pushed all the way!

PILOT:

We're losing altitude.

Don't lower them all.

It's lowering!

We're going down.

NARRATOR: The passengers grasp the seriousness

of the situation.

Many of them prepare for the end.

But increasing power to avoid the mountains

has caused the plane to resume its wayward up

and down motions.

Having run out of options, the crew

is forced to repeat the same futile procedures

over and over.

They've been fighting the plane for nearly 30 minutes.

It's up!

Japan Air 123, Japan Air 123.

NARRATOR: The air traffic controllers--

Japanese and American-- are desperate to help

to give Flight 123 any information

or reassurance they can.

Request radar back into Haneda.

Roger.

Understood.

Keep heading zero, niner, zero.

PILOT: But the plane continues heading off to the Northwest,

away from both Haneda Airport and Yakota Air Base.

With every rise and fall of the plane,

they're barely above the mountain tops.

Can you control the aircraft now?

NARRATOR: An ominous silence descends on area control.

Japan Air 123, switch the radio frequency to 119.7--

119.7, please.

NARRATOR: They try changing radio frequency.

If you can change the frequency 119.7--

NARRATOR: There is no reply.

If you read, come up on 119.7.

We are all ready.

PILOT: Japan Air-- one, two, three.

Yes.

PILOT: We've selected 119.7.

What is our position?

On our radar, you're 55--

505 5-5 miles Northwest.

We are ready for your approach at any time.

Yokota is also available for landing.

Let us know your intentions, over.

NARRATOR: At Haneda Airport, emergency services

are being mobilized for the plane

wherever it can touch down.

Yes.

watch it.

They say we're 25 miles west of Kumagaya.

NARRATOR: Suddenly, the plane goes into a steep dive,

the worst yet.

Stop the flap.

Power! Flap up!

Flap up! Flap up!

Power! Power!

NARRATOR: The plane is falling at 16,000 feet a minute.

Japan Air 123, Japan Air 123, can you hear me?

NARRATOR: At Tokyo Control, they've

lost contact with a Japan Airlines

jumbo jet full of passengers.

An American plane flying in the area

has been listening in to the drama of Flight 123

and reports seeing flames in the mountains

over 100 miles West of Tokyo.

One of the C-130 pilots later said

that they even guided a rescue helicopter to the scene.

And American Marines stood by ready to repel

down to the burning wreckage.

But before they could do, so they were

ordered to return to base.

Rivalry between the various Japanese emergency forces

is reported to have caused confusion

and delays as the victims of the crash waited for help.

During the night the Japanese self-defense force

arrives on the scene.

A helicopter flown by Captain Isuzu Omori

finds the crash site.

The pilot radios in.

MAN (ON RADIO): ,, Victor 107 I see something.

I see flames in about 10 spots over an area ,

of about 300 meters square.

MAN (ON RADIO): Victor 107,

is there any sign of survivors?

MAN (ON RADIO): Victor 107, no signs of survivors.

Visibility poor.

Too much smoke.

MAN (ON RADIO): Victor 107, can you land to investigate?

MAN (ON RADIO): Not a chance.

It's a 45-degree slope down there.

Nowhere to put down, and there's fire everywhere.

NARRATOR: Seeing no sign of survivors

and being unwilling to risk a landing at night,

Captain Omori returns to base.

Meanwhile, a team of rescuers is on its way by road.

Since they don't expect to find anyone alive,

they spend the night in a village

40 miles from the crash site.

NARRATOR: On the side of the mountain,

the passengers of Flight 123 lie dying.

NARRATOR: The next morning, the last minutes of Flight 123

start to become clear.

The 747 sliced a path through the trees

near the top of Mount Osutaka, one of the mountains

north of Mount Fuji.

The plane finally hit a ridge several hundred

feet further on and exploded.

The wreckage and passengers then

tumbled down the steep side of the mountain.

It's now 14 hours after the crash.

The Japanese Self-Defense Force rescue team

finally arrives at the scene.

They are confronted with the worst single aircraft

accident in history.

They are shocked to find a survivor.

It's the off duty flight attendant Yumi Ochiai,

still hanging onto life.

And she is not the only one.

Rescuers find a 12-year-old girl

wedged in the branches of a tree

and airlift her to safety.

Incredibly, two more passengers are

alive, a young mother and her eight-year-old daughter.

It's nothing short of a miracle.

But how have these four survived?

The human body is believed to be

able to stand a forward deceleration of up to 25

times the force of gravity.

But investigators report that from the speed at which

the aircraft hit the ground, those

at the front of the plane experienced

a sudden stop of over 100 Gs.

NARRATOR: Investigators will soon discover that all four

of the surviving passengers were

seated in the last seven rows.

This is how they survived.

In the back of the 747, the impact forces were much less.

Sheer luck had protected them from the flying debris.

Yumi Ochiai has a broken pelvis and a fractured arm.

She tells a disturbing story of what happened

as she lay on the mountain.

YUMI OCHIAI (VOICEOVER): After the crash,

I heard harsh panting and gasping

noises from many people.

I heard it coming from everywhere all around me.

There was a boy crying, "mother."

I clearly heard a young woman saying, "Come quickly."

Suddenly, I heard a boy's voice.

"OK, I'll hang on," he said.

It sounded like the voice of a boy of about school age.

In the darkness, I could hear the sound of a helicopter.

I couldn't see any light.

But I could hear the sound.

And it was quite near, too.

We will be saved, I thought, and waved frantically.

But the helicopter went further away.

Don't go.

I waved desperately.

Help.

But it faded.

I could no longer hear the voices

of the boy or the young woman.

NARRATOR: It's clear now that many died in the cold night

air waiting for rescue.

The crash of this jumbo jet would normally

be a strictly Japanese affair.

But it sets aviation alarm bells

ringing around the world.

Only weeks earlier, an Air India 747

had gone down in the Atlantic, killing 329 people.

Now another 520 are dead.

Was there something wrong with the 747,

the world's biggest jet?

Could there be some unknown design fault?

There were some 600 747s flying worldwide.

A problem with the plane would have grave consequences

for aviation.

Ron Schleede, the top investigator

with America's National Transportation Safety Board,

the NTSB, was assigned the case.

RON SCHLEEDE: So it was a very big concern on our part about

whether there was a problem with the 747,

an airworthiness problem.

And so we had to jump on this very quickly

to learn what happened.

NARRATOR: At the Washington headquarters of the NTSB,

the chairman was extremely concerned

at the potential consequences for world aviation.

He wrote a personal note to his corresponding figure in Japan

asking him to invite the NTSB to join

the investigation as guests.

During the late '70s and '80s, Ron Schleede

was involved with many international investigations

for the NTSB.

He's familiar with the sensitivities of working

with foreign government and heads to Tokyo

where he'll meet with the rest of his team,

representatives from Boeing, the plane's manufacturer,

and an engineer from America's Federal

Aviation Administration.

When I arrived in Tokyo, the atmosphere in Japan

was extremely stressful.

The news media were everywhere.

There was a tremendous amount of anger.

NARRATOR: Once in Japan, Schleede

found that the local Japanese police had taken

over the investigation and were treating it

like a crime scene, diligently observing his team's

every move.

Everyone was considered suspicious.

Japanese airline personnel, Boeing personnel

were considered suspicious.

They weren't even allowed to go to the accident site.

NARRATOR: Schleede had to wait for two days

before the Japanese authorities would

allow him to visit the site.

I was able to convince the Japanese to allow us to take

Boeing people to the site with the stipulation

that the Boeing people stuck very close to us

and we supervised them while they were on scene.

They could not operate on their own.

NARRATOR: Schleede found that to gain access to the site,

the Japanese had quickly constructed

helicopter landing pads.

RON SCHLEEDE: It was an amazing sight

to look up at this mountain and see

what looked like wreckage from an airplane at a distance.

But you could not recognize any part of an airplane.

There were scores of helicopters in the air landing

and taking off every couple minutes.

NARRATOR: Amidst the wreckage of JAL 123,

Schleede found that some families of the victims

had managed to scramble to the remote mountainside on foot

and build shrines to their loved ones.

From above, flowers rained down on the investigators.

RON SCHLEEDE: I recall these big, white--

I believe there were Chinook helicopters-- flying over.

And there were families aboard the helicopters

looking at the accident site.

They were quite high.

And they were dropping flower petals

down onto the accident site.

The one thing that we found when we got to the accident

site was that many of the passengers

had a lot of time to think about the end.

And they found many, many notes written

on pieces of paper, anything they could get their hands on.

MAN (VOICEOVER): My darling wife, life

with you has been wonderful.

Our children have grown up to be people I am proud of.

I never dreamed that the dinner we had last night

would be our last together.

RON SCHLEEDE: Passengers were able to think and realize

that they were out of control and maybe going to crash,

so they wrote notes to their loved ones

and left them in the back of the seats or in their pockets.

NARRATOR: But what could have caused this disaster?

The main thing the investigators have to go on

are the words in the plane's cockpit voice recorder.

Those are the plane's flight engineer who

said that door R5 was broken.

They believe that the door had somehow come off in flight,

crashed into the tail, and damaged the plane's flying

surfaces, the horizontal stabilizer which

makes the plane go up and down, and the rudder, which controls

side to side movement.

But then investigators get news that destroys that theory.

The door had not come off.

It is found amid the wreckage.

The flight engineer was wrong.

PILOT: Oh, right now, the R5 door has broken.

NARRATOR: The warning light on his panel

led him to believe that the door had failed in flight.

But the alarm may have been set off

by a short circuit in the electrical system

caused by the ceiling collapsing in the explosion.

It was not a broken door that caused Flight 123 to crash.

The investigators would have to look elsewhere.

Stop the flap!

Power!

Power! Power!

Flap up! Flap up!

Flap up!

Raise the nose!

Raise the nose!

NARRATOR: The photograph taken by an amateur photographer

provides the first clue to the mystery of why

the plane became unflyable.

There's something odd about the image.

Technicians enhance the photograph

to sharpen its blurred lines.

Finally, they get a clear enough picture.

The entire tail fin of the airplane is missing.

It's what keeps the plane steady.

Since most of the plane's hydraulic fluid lines

pass through the fin, it starts to make

sense why they lost hydraulic pressure

and control of the plane.

Then a Japanese Navy Ship steaming across the bay

south of Tokyo came upon the plane's tail fin

floating on the sea.

It's at the very spot where the plane had

first reported an emergency.

Investigators are now certain that the starting point

of the accident must have something to do

with the tail of the aircraft.

They review the known facts.

Something had caused the ceiling at the back

of the plane to collapse.

There had been an explosive decompression of the aircraft.

Whatever it was also ripped off the tail fin

and the main hydraulic lines with it, making

the plane uncontrollable.

This may be hopeless.

The hydraulic fluid is all gone.

All lost?

NARRATOR: Explosion, decompression--

PILOT: Lower!

Lower!

NARRATOR: --loss of the tail fin--

PILOT: Raise the nose.

NARRATOR: --and hydraulic failure.

The investigators need to find out what links

these four elements together.

PILOT: Power!

Power!

That would explain everything.

NARRATOR: Crash investigators look back into the history

of the 747 in the JAL accident, and they

make an intriguing discovery.

The plane had been in another accident seven years earlier.

The pilot landed the plane with its nose too high.

The tail struck the ground and scraped along the runway.

RON SCHLEEDE: There had been a repair

to the rear part of the airplane,

including the rear pressure bulkhead.

Well, all modern jets, aircraft, when they climb,

they have to be pressurized to keep

the cabin to a reasonable level for the passengers.

So let's take a 747.

When the 747 is on the ground, it's

actually somewhat oval shaped.

And as it climbs and pressurizes,

it becomes more circular.

NARRATOR: The rear pressure bulkhead

is like a huge metal umbrella lying on its side

at the very back of the plane.

Its purpose is to stop pressurized air

escaping from the cabin out to the tail of the aircraft.

It must be very, very heavy and strong because the forces

are tremendous.

They're over 8 PSI differential-- very--

a lot of pressure.

The design of the 747 aft pressure bulkhead

was what they call a dome.

And it was designed to take the pressure

with a lot less heavy metal, and it's a typical design.

It's a pressure dome.

NARRATOR: Seven years earlier, Japan Airlines called

in Boeing to repair the crack.

Boeing engineers spliced a new panel

into the damaged bulkhead.

But at the accident site of Flight 123 in 1985,

Ron Schleede stumbled across a piece of wreckage that

unraveled the entire mystery.

It was a piece of this new panel that had been

spliced into the bulkhead.

RON SCHLEEDE: The repair had in fact not been done correctly.

There was only one row of rivets holding that joint

together where there should have been two rows of rivets

holding the joint together.

NARRATOR: To explain to the Japanese investigators what he

discovered, Ron Schleede sketched out

how the repair should have been done

and the mistake that had been made.

It was a catastrophic error.

The rivets were carrying twice the force

they should have been.

One of the FAA engineers there did

some calculations for us based on this earlier

repair of the bulkhead.

And his theory was, if the repair wasn't done correctly,

for example, if they had not put the rivets in properly

and they only had one row of rivets holding

the bulkhead together versus two as designed,

that it possibly could--

would fail prematurely.

NARRATOR: The FAA engineer calculated

that the faulty repair to the bulkhead

would fail after 10,000 flights.

From the moment the repair was done,

it was simply a matter of time.

The investigators found that a simple human error

had led to this.

PILOT: Raise the nose!

Raise the nose up!

NARRATOR: On a summer's evening in 1985,

Japan Air 123 lifts off from Haneda Airport.

It's the 12,319th takeoff since the repair of the damaged

bulkhead, a repair that investigators calculated would

only hold for 10,000 flights.

As the plane climbs to 24,000 feet,

the air outside gets thinner and thinner.

But the air inside the cabin is pressurized

for the passengers' comfort.

The difference in air pressure between the cabin on one side

of the bulkhead and the unpressurized tail

on the other stretches the bulkhead and its faulty repair

to the breaking point.

In a test which duplicated these conditions,

cracks begin to appear and lengthen

around the rivet holes--

--until the bulkhead snaps.

In an instant, pressurized air from the cabin blows

a 30 square foot hole, bringing down the ceiling

around the rear toilets.

The highly pressurized air blasts

its way into the tail fin of the aircraft

and simply breaks it off.

From that moment on, the plane is doomed.

The pilots don't know that most of the tail of their aircraft

is missing, blown off into the sea below,

along with the crucial hydraulic lines that allow

them to control the plane.

It all finally makes sense.

Without the stabilizing influence of the tail and with

the loss of ability to control the rudder and flaps,

the pilots cannot control the plane.

The giant aircraft now oscillates

in a terrifying motion called the phugoid cycle.

Don't lower!

Don't lower!

NARRATOR: As the nose drops into a shallow dive,

the plane gathers speed which generates lift.

The nose rises again.

And the plane begins to climb until it

loses speed, tips over, and begins to fall again.

The whole cycle repeats itself over and over again.

Flight 123 is now plunging up and down in terrifying dives,

sometimes several hundred feet at a time.

RON SCHLEEDE: It really could be considered a miracle

that the pilots were able to keep the airplane flying

for 30 minutes or more after having

lost all their hydraulics and their flight controls.

But it kept circling.

And eventually, it worked its way into the mountains.

And it became impossible for them to, uh--

to land.

There was no real alternative for them

at all, except to fly as long as they

could and hope for some miracle, which never occurred.

Lower the nose. Lower the nose.

Yes, sir.

PILOT: Both hands.

PILOT: How about gear down?

Gear down!

PILOT: We should put the gear down.

NARRATOR: To understand what the pilots were up against,

four hand-picked flight crews were placed in a simulator

and confronted with the same situation.

Not one of them could land the plane.

The pilots of Flight 123 managed to keep their plane

in the air for 30 minutes, much of it

among high mountains, an amazing feat of flying.

Back in Tokyo, as the cause of the JAL accident

was identified, Ron Schleede had to break the news

to his colleague from Boeing, one of the top designers

of the 747.

The simple truth was that a single row of rivets

had been used for the repair when

a double row was required.

RON SCHLEEDE: And when we, uh, described our findings to him,

you can imagine this Boeing man became very, very upset,

and personally was crying because of the fact

that his airplane that he designed

and then the people that did the repair because it was

Boeing people that designed and did the repair had made

an improper repair that caused the airplane to crash.

NARRATOR: Boeing's reputation was damaged.

But if they could derive any comfort at all

from this tragedy, it was that there was

no inherent fault in the 747.

The plane went on to become one of the most successful

civil aircraft of all time.

However, Japan Airlines, the innocent party,

had no such comfort.

After I left the scene and came home,

it was my understanding that one

of the senior Japanese Airlines maintenance managers

actually committed suicide.

NARRATOR: The Japanese Airlines President resigned.

Bookings slumped.

Rumors abounded in Japan that the airline was indeed guilty

and that Boeing was just taking the rap

for a valuable customer.

It has taken years for Japan Airlines

to recover from this experience, the worst

single plane crash in history.