JCG Captain, Copilot Misconceived Instruction in Tokyo Crash

   Tokyo, Dec. 25 (Jiji Press)--The captain and the copilot of a crashed Japan Coast Guard aircraft both misunderstood the air traffic controller's instruction in its fatal collision with a Japan Airlines plane in Tokyo in January, a government report said Wednesday.
   According to an interim report by the Japan Transport Safety Board, its investigations including an analysis of the cockpit voice recorders found that the two wrongly recognized that the JCG aircraft was allowed to enter a runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, leading to the collision with the JAL passenger plane.
   Five of the JCG aircraft's six crew members died, and the only survivor was the captain. All of the JAL plane's 379 passengers and crew members evacuated, although 17 of them were injured.
   The investigations also showed that a traffic controller different from the one in charge of the JCG aircraft spotted on radar screen the JCG aircraft entering the runway but that this did not help prevent the accident. The board will compile a final report following further investigations.
   In the Jan. 2 accident, the JCG's Bombardier DHC-8 belonging to the Haneda Air Station of the 3rd Regional Coast Guard Headquarters was about to take off from the airport to transport relief goods following a major earthquake that rocked the Noto Peninsula in central Japan the preceding day.

(2024/12/25-14:24)

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