JCG Captain, Copilot Misconceived Instruction in Tokyo Crash

Jiji Press

14:55 JST, December 25, 2024

TOKYO (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.

According to the interim report, the copilot accurately repeated the air traffic controller’s instruction that the JCG aircraft was allowed to proceed to the holding point of the C5 taxiway and that the aircraft was in the first place in the list of planes waiting for takeoff.

The captain stopped short of repeating everything and instead confirmed only “number one” and “C5.” Without permission to enter the runway, however, the captain told other crew members to conduct checks needed before takeoff, but the copilot did not question his instruction.

The aircraft, whose departure had been delayed due to auxiliary engine trouble while the flight plan was partly undecided, continued radio communication with the JCG’s Haneda Air Station even as the plane was entering the runway.

There was no evidence to back the captain’s claim after the accident that the aircraft received permissions from the air traffic controller to enter the runway and take off.

The board is conducting further investigations, thinking that the radio communication with the JCG air station shortly before the collision and the captain’s rush to take off may have led to the misunderstanding of the controller’s instruction.

According to descriptions of the controller’s move in the report, the controller communicating with the JCG aircraft was in charge of giving instructions for taking off and landing to five aircraft, including the two collided ones, and was monitoring two more planes.

The other controller, who was monitoring radar screen in another control center, noticed the JCG aircraft and asked the controller in charge, “What’s happening to the JAL plane?” recognizing the possibility that the JAL plane might need to make a go-around.

But this was not sufficiently understood by the controller in charge of the JCG aircraft. The two aircraft collided 15 seconds later.

The captain of the JAL plane was unaware of the JCG aircraft until just before the collision. The moves by the three sides led to the accident, according to the report.