Japan Air Lines Flight 123
1985 aviation accident in Japan
Why this is trending
Interest in “Japan Air Lines Flight 123” spiked on Wikipedia on 2026-02-25.
Sudden spikes in Wikipedia readership generally point to a newsworthy event or emerging public conversation that piques widespread curiosity.
GlyphSignal tracks these patterns daily, turning raw Wikipedia traffic data into a curated feed of what the world is curious about. Every spike tells a story.
Key Takeaways
- Japan Air Lines Flight 123 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Tokyo to Osaka, Japan.
- After flying under minimal control for 32 minutes, the plane crashed in the area of Mount Takamagahara, 100 kilometres (62 mi; 54 nmi) from Tokyo.
- The crash killed all 15 crew members and 505 of the 509 passengers on board, leaving only four survivors.
- The crash is the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history and remains the deadliest aviation incident in Japan.
- National Transportation Safety Board, concluded that the structural failure was caused by a faulty repair by Boeing technicians following a tailstrike seven years earlier.
Japan Air Lines Flight 123 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Tokyo to Osaka, Japan. On the evening of Monday, August 12, 1985, the Boeing 747 flying the route suffered a severe structural failure and explosive decompression 12 minutes after takeoff. After flying under minimal control for 32 minutes, the plane crashed in the area of Mount Takamagahara, 100 kilometres (62 mi; 54 nmi) from Tokyo.
The aircraft, featuring a high-density seating configuration, was carrying 524 people. The crash killed all 15 crew members and 505 of the 509 passengers on board, leaving only four survivors. An estimated 20 to 50 passengers survived the initial crash, but died from their injuries while awaiting rescue. The crash is the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history and remains the deadliest aviation incident in Japan.
Japan's Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission (AAIC), assisted by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, concluded that the structural failure was caused by a faulty repair by Boeing technicians following a tailstrike seven years earlier. When the faulty repair eventually failed, it resulted in a rapid decompression that ripped off a large portion of the tail and caused the loss of function of all hydraulic systems and flight controls.
Content sourced from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0
