40 Years On: Widow Appeals to JAL Workers on Flight Safety

   Ueno, Gunma Pref., Aug. 11 (Jiji Press)--Machiko Taniguchi, who lost her husband in the 1985 crash of a Japan Airlines jumbo jet, spoke in July directly to young JAL employees involved in flight safety, her first such opportunity since the tragedy.
   "The safety of the skies rests on your eyes and your hands," she told them.
   A week later, Taniguchi, 77, climbed to the crash site on Osutaka Ridge in the village of Ueno, Gunma Prefecture, eastern Japan, and stood before the memorial marker for her husband. "I told him I had asked them to make sure the same accident never happens again," she said.
   On Aug. 12, 1985, her husband, Masakatsu, 40, boarded Japan Airlines Flight 123 bound for Osaka in western Japan, heading home after attending the funeral of a superior at work in Tokyo. Shortly after takeoff, the plane lost control and crashed in the mountains north of the capital, killing 520 passengers and crew, including him.
   As the aircraft shuddered, he scrawled a brief note to his wife. "Machiko, please take good care of our children," reads the note, which was found in a pocket of the trousers he was wearing.

(2025/08/11-10:00)