region northwest of tokyo, the plane goes into a nosedive, falling 18,000 feet a minute. just before 7:00 p.m., jal flight 123 drops off the radar screen. it has slammed into a mountain at nearly 400 miles an hour. these are the first daylight pictures from the site of what appears to be the worst single airliner crash ever. the japan airlines 747 went down in the mountains outside tokyo. it is believed that all 524 people on board were killed. coming up next, investigators face the grim task of piecing together the mystery. we had a catastrophic scene. we had millions of airplane parts scattered over a mountainside. but among the wreckage, a miraculous discovery.
it takes rescuers a half a day to get to the remote spot where japan airlines, jal flight 123 has slammed into a mountain northwest of tokyo. we had millions of airline the four people that survived the accident were in the very aft a section of the airplane so when the airplane struck the ground, the tail section broke from the main section of the fuselage and was grown well away from the impact point. he hoped his sister would be among the survivors. sadly, as he discovered in a
as jal 123 enters a mountainous region northwest of tokyo, the plane goes into a nosedive, falling 18,000 feet a minute. just before 7:00 p.m., jal flight 123 drops off the radar screen. it has slammed into a mountain at nearly 400 miles an hour. these are the first daylight pictures from the site of what appears to be the worst single airliner crash ever. a 747 has gone down. it s believed that all 524 people on board were killed. coming up next, investigators face the grim task of piecing together the mystery. we had a catastrophic scene, we had millions of airplane parts scattered over a mountainside. but among the wreckage a miraculous discovery.
as we ve seen, structural failure on airplanes can be caused by inadequate inspections, faulty maintenance practices or design flaws buried deep within the guts of these giant machines. but the deadliest single plane crash in history, a 747 that crashed into a japanese mountainside had another cause entirely. august 12th, 1985, japan airlines flight 123 has a staggering 524 people on board. the plane is set to fly from tokyo to osaka. this workhorse of a jet makes the one-hour trip several times a day. it s like flying from new york to boston.
japan airlines flight 123. it is a tragedy with many clues tonight but no hard answers yet. it takes rescuers a half a day to get to the remote spot where japan airlines, jal flight 123, has slammed into a mountain northwest of tokyo. when stress investigators finally reach the crash site they begin combing the wreckage for clues. miraculously, they find something they didn t expect. two women and two young girls have survived. the four people that survived the accident were seated in the aft section of the plane. when the airplane struck the ground the tail section broke from the main section of the fuselage and was thrown well away from the impact point. takashi hoped his sister would be among the survivors. sadly, as he discovered at a makeshift morgue, that was not the case.