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FOUR decades on, the doomed Japan Airlines Flight 123 crash remains one of the world’s worst aviation disasters of all time.
Haunting final pictures show the jet just moments before it crashed because of a critical failure – killing 520 people on board.
A photo taken by a witness on the ground appears to show Flight 123 missing its tailfin[/caption]
The last photo taken on board the fatal Japan Airlines flight shows oxygen masks hanging[/caption]
The plane was headed to Osaka after departing Tokyo[/caption]
Tragedy struck on August 12, 1985 when the Boeing 747SR-46 jet crashed just 62 miles northwest of Tokyo.
On board the jet were 509 passengers and 15 crew members.
Only four of them survived.
The flight, dubbed the “Titanic of Japan”, took off from Tokyo and was headed to Osaka but tragically crashed in the remote area of remote mountain area of Mount Takamagahara.
And to date, it remains the worst disaster in the history of Japanese aviation.
One of the last few pictures shows the Jet missing its tailfin.
Another picture, thought to be the final picture taken on board, shows oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling.
It is thought that the plane was perfectly fine, and the journey began normally after all the routine checks.
But just 12 minutes after takeoff, First Officer Yutaka Sasaki and Captain Masami Takahama noticed a tremor tear through the plane.
The jet decompressed rapidly, which caused the ceiling near the rear bathrooms to collapse.
It extensively damaged the fuselage and destroyed the plane’s vertical stabiliser and all four hydraulic lines.
Moments after the tremor was detected, the air condensed into a fog, forcing the oxygen masks down.
For a terrifying 30 minutes, the pilots fought hard to claim control of the plane, but the jet was in a vicious and disorienting cycle of falling and then rising.
Passengers shouted as they were thrown around the plane by the rapid spiralling, while the pilots fought to bring the jet to safety.
But the out-of-control plane continued to descend and got closer to the mountains, where it crashed and exploded.
According to reports, Captain Takahama made a last-ditch effort to keep the aircraft aloft by using the engine thrust to ascend and fall.
He is believed to have yelled: “This is the end!”
Around 20 minutes after impact, US Air Force serviceman Michael Antonucci reported the crash site.
In the aftermath of the crash, the search and rescue efforts were delayed, and survivors were not found until several hours later.
This delay likely contributed to the high death toll, as some victims who survived the initial impact died before help could arrive.
Japanese officials delayed sending a rescue crew, assuming that no one had survived, and told Antonucci not to discuss the disaster.
Japan Airlines (JAL) flight 123 crash site[/caption]
Members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force in a rescue operation at the crash site at the ridge of Mount Takamagahara[/caption]
The Japanese military only sent rescue teams in the following morning, a whole 12 hours after the crash had been reported.
Antonucci revealed a decade later: “Four people survived. Many more could have.
“At the time it occurred, I was ordered not to speak about it.”
One doctor involved in the rescue mission said: “If the discovery had come 10 hours earlier, we could have found more survivors.”
Yumi Ochiai, a survivor, claimed to have heard other survivors wailing all through the night, until the intense cold finally got to them.
Antonucci added that had it “not been for efforts to avoid embarrassing Japanese authorities”, a team of US Marines could have searched the wreckage less than two hours after the crash.
The puzzle began to come together as more teams were dispatched to retrieve body and plane parts.
Two years later, after a comprehensive investigation, Japan’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission determined that the decompression was caused by a botched repair by Boeing workers.
The same aircraft had thudded heavily upon landing at Itami Airport in June 1978, causing extensive tail damage.
The impact also cracked open the pressure bulkhead, necessitating immediate repairs.
However, Boeing’s repair personnel utilised two spice plates parallel to the break in the bulkhead instead of one, rendering the repair job worthless.
According to Ron Schleede, a member of the US National Transportation Safety Board, the crew did everything they could to avoid the disaster, which was “inevitable”.
Tenerife Airport Disaster, 1977
On March 27, 1977, on the island of Tenerife two Boeing 747 jets collided on the runway in the deadliest accident in aviation history.
The accident occurred as a result of heady mix bombings, organisational issues and fog.
A bomb explosion at the airport on Gran Canaria caused many flights to be diverted Los Rodeos Airport on the popular holiday island.
Among two of the flights affected were KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736, neither would leave the island.
Tragedy struck due to radio miscommunication causing the Dutch plane to rocket down the runway at take-off speed while the US aircraft was taxing in the opposite direction.
The resulting collision resulted in the death of 583 people.
Malaysian Airlines 370, 2014
The MH370 Boeing was seen for the last time on military radar at 2.14am, close to the south of Phuket Island in the Strait of Malacca.
Half an hour later, the airline lost contact with the plane. It had been due to land at around 6.30am.
On July 29, 2015 – more than a year after the plane’s disappearance – debris was found by volunteers cleaning a beach in St Andre, Reunion.
A week later investigators confirmed the debris did belong to MH370, but it did not help to locate the plane as it had drifted in the water.
Theories abound about what happened to the missing jet but the true cause of the crash may never be known.
Malaysian Airlines 17, 2014
Flight MH17 was as passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17 2014.
All passengers and crew perished putting the death toll at 298 in the deadliest case of “airliner shootdown” in history, 80 children was on board when it went down.
It was hit by a Russian made Buk surface to air missile fired from Ukrainian separatist held land near Donetsk.
Air France Flight 447, 2009
On June 1 2009 Air France Flight 447 disappeared off the radar off the coast of Brazil.
The airline took six hours to acknowledge the loss of the plane and no trace was found for days.
All 216 passengers and 12 crew were never seen again after the Rio to Paris flight crashed out of the sky.
Investigations went on to prove that the crash was caused by the pilot flying to high and stalling the engines causing the plane to fall out of the sky and into the Atlantic ocean.
Uruguayan Flight 571, 1972
The chartered Air Force plane carrying 45 people, including a Uruguayan rugby team, crashed in the Andes in South America.
More than a quarter of the passengers lost their lives on impact and a number of others quickly succumbed to the cold of the mountains or injuries sustained in the crash.
Of the 27 who survived the initial impact and cold a further eight were killed in an avalanche a few days after the incident.
Eventually 16 people were rescued after spending more than two months in the freezing conditions of the mountains.
But those survivors had been forced to eat the corpses of their fellow passengers when faced with starvation.
JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367, 1972
The McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 model aircraft was blown up by a bomb placed on board by Croatian fascist militant group the Ustase as it made its way back to Yugoslavia from Sweden.
All but one of the 28 passengers and crew died on the plane but one stewardess made it into the record books.
Lockerbie Bombing, 1988
Pan Am Flight 103 was flying from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York on 21 December 1988.
While over the Scottish town of Lockerbie a bomb was detonated aboard the flight, killing all passengers and crew.
Eleven of the town’s residents on the ground were also killed by falling debris, bringing the death toll to 270.
Air India Crash, 2025
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner with 242 passengers on board – including 53 Brits – smashed into a doctors’ hostel in Ahmedabad in the west of India.
The plane was headed to London Gatwick with 232 passengers and 10 crew on board when it crashed just seconds after take-off.
The Dreamliner lost contact just seconds after take-off, according to flight tracking website Flightradar.
A final alert was last logged less than a minute after it started the journey from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.
It had only reached 625ft at the time, officials believe.
Seconds before the crash, the Boeing was filmed flying low over the Meghani Nagar residential area with the pilots appearing to be in a desperate bid to keep the plane in the air.
Moments later, it was seen disappearing behind buildings before a huge blast was seen in the distance.
Brit passenger Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, was the sole survivor of the fatal crash.
The British government faces mounting scrutiny over its military cooperation with Israel after the Israeli targeted killing of six journalists in an strike on Sunday in Gaza.
South Sudan’s government on Wednesday denied it’s talking with Israel over a plan to resettle Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to the East African nation.
Presidents Trump and Putin are scheduled to meet Friday at Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, in northern Anchorage, American officials said Tuesday. The trip will be Putin’s first to the United States in a decade, and the first-ever for a Russian president visiting Alaska, which Russia sold to the U.S. 158 years ago.
White House officials are already playing down expectations for the summit, which is ostensibly about the future of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, the Financial Times and CNBC reported Tuesday. The Friday meeting is planned one week after a deadline Trump gave Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face further sanctions on August 8. Four days later, neither has occurred.
Trump himself called the Friday meeting a “feel-out session.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described it as a “listening session” about Russia’s ongoing invasion, which Putin has used to occupy and conquer about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory.
Worth noting: Putin has an arrest warrant out from the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It was issued in 2023 for the war crime of kidnapping Ukrainian children, which is still taking place inside occupied Ukraine, as the New York Post reported last week. Because of the warrant, Putin doesn’t travel abroad that much, especially to Europe where most countries are wary of Putin’s motives. The Middle East was one option; but Trump suggested Alaska and Putin accepted. CNN has a bit more on the difficulties accommodating Putin in Alaska on such short notice.
The view from Kyiv: “This war must be ended. Pressure must be exerted on Russia for the sake of a just peace. Ukraine’s and our partners’ experience must be used to prevent deception by Russia,” President Volodymir Zelenskyy said on social media Wednesday.
“At present, there is no sign that the Russians are preparing to end the war,” Zelenskyy said. “Our coordinated efforts and joint actions—of Ukraine, the United States, Europe, and all countries that seek peace—can definitely compel Russia to make peace. I thank everyone who is helping,” he added.
Worth noting: A top Putin aide is already talking about a follow-up summit that will be held somewhere inside Russia, Yuri Ushakov told reporters Wednesday.
Trump spoke to European leaders in a joint call Wednesday. The discussion reportedly featured talk of “red lines,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “These include: a cease-fire as a prerequisite for further talks; any territorial discussions to start from the current front lines; and binding Western security guarantees that Russia must accept.”
The view from Berlin: “We want negotiations to take place in the right order; a ceasefire must come first. Essential elements should then be agreed in a framework agreement,” Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday after the phone call with Trump. He added, “Ukraine is prepared to negotiate on territorial issues, but…legal recognition of Russian occupation is not up for debate.”
But Russian officials muddied the waters a bit, insisting Ukraine must give up four regions Russia has invaded—Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south. “The territorial integrity of the Russian Federation is enshrined in our constitution, and that says it all,” Russian deputy foreign ministry spokesman Alexei Fadeev said Wednesday.
Zelenskyy told Trump he thinks Fadeev and Putin are “bluffing.” Zelenskyy said he believes “Putin is trying to apply pressure before the meeting in Alaska along all part of the Ukrainian front. Russia is trying to show that it can occupy all of Ukraine,” according to Reuters in Berlin.
Additional reading:
“A look at Putin’s past trips to the US ahead of planned Alaska summit,” Reuters reported in a retrospective on Monday;
“Russia Is Suspected to Be Behind Breach of Federal Court Filing System,” the New York Times reported Tuesday;
And the BBC investigated, “How are drones changing the landscape of modern warfare?” in a new 23-minute report.
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1961, East Germany began building the Berlin Wall.
Around the Defense Department
Will tearing up nearly-complete IT overhauls save money? “Donald Trump’s Navy and Air Force are poised to cancel two nearly complete software projects that took 12 years and well over $800 million combined to develop, work initially aimed at overhauling antiquated human resources systems.” reports Reuters’ Alexandra Alper, who has a deep dive, here.
Some lawmakers worry that DOD leaders won’t follow congressional intent as they spend $150 billion from the reconciliation act, Breaking Defense reports. The deadline for the Pentagon’s plan is Aug. 22.
ICYMI: “‘Fund first, ask questions later’ is a bad way to go,” Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, wrote in Defenese One.
Vulcan’s first natsec launch lofts the Pentagon’s first experimental navigation satellite in half a century. United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket launched the Navigation Technology Satellite-3 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday. The satellite will test new anti-spoofing signals, a steerable phased-array antenna to send signals to ground forces in high-jamming areas, and receivers to help the satellite operate without instructions from ground controllers, Joanna Hicks, a senior research aerospace engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory, told reporters Monday ahead of the launch.
The mission was supposed to have launched in 2022, but delays with ULA’s heavy-lift Vulcan pushed it to this year. Defense One’s Audrey Decker has a bit more, here.
What are the prospects for military action against foreign drug cartels? “The president has ordered the Pentagon to use the armed forces to carry out what in the past was considered law enforcement,” the New York Times reported on Friday. Your D-Brief-er talked with journalist and writer Kevin Maurer, whose work focuses on U.S. special operations forces around the world, and who dug into the subject for Rolling Stone.
Listen: Defense One Radio, Ep. 189: “The U.S. military vs. drug cartels.”
See also Politico’s take: “Why Trump’s War on the Drug Cartels Is Bound to Backfire // The president’s punishment-heavy plan doesn’t just ignore other factors—it actively undermines itself.”
Meet the archconservative church network that Pete Hegseth belongs to. A week after SecDef reposted a video showing pastors arguing that women should not be able to vote, the Associated Press has an explainer.
Trump 2.0
Analysis: “Sending the National Guard into D.C. Is the Wrong Solution to a Crime Problem,” writes former Marine Corps Col. Mark Cancian and researcher Chris Park of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Their argument features three components:
“Military forces are less familiar than police with the nuances of citizens’ rights and the conditions under which force is permissible (see Figure 1, which compares military training with that of the police). National Guard training focuses on combat—how to use weapons and fight—while police training focuses on handling crime and the law.”
“Military forces have the wrong attitude about civilians. Law enforcement is trained to see civilians as citizens who deserve protection, except in the most extreme circumstances. Military personnel are taught to treat civilians as potential threats and to always be ready to respond. Crowd control—in other words, dealing with unruly citizens—is the primary law enforcement training the National Guard receives.”
“Military personnel are untrained in the complexities of gathering evidence and building a case that will stand up in court. Indeed, nearly half the Police Academy’s 27-week curriculum is dedicated to criminal procedure.”
Their recommendation: “The first action should be bringing the police up to full strength, despite the president’s statements that D.C. has enough police,” Cancian and Park write. What’s more, “If the concern is the protection of federal property, physical security could be enhanced” as happened in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. “Similar measures could be adopted again. Physical security has the advantage that it is on duty 24/7 and does not require expensive personnel.” Continue reading, here.
Commentary: “There’s a real risk that the feds could posture for 30 days,” writes Charles Fain Lehman of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, writing Tuesday for The Atlantic, “and then declare victory as violence continues its downward trajectory. That would, of course, do little to fix the real problems.”
Instead, Lehman argues, “the administration should focus its resources on the people and places that make the District unusually unsafe. The city has already identified the ‘power few’ who drive the large majority of violent offending. The administration’s priority should be to target these people for apprehension, prosecution, and incapacitation—as soon as possible.”
But there is a bit more that can be done, too, says Lehman. “Research shows that deploying more senior officers reduces both crime and use of force—the opposite of what D.C. does. The administration could switch things up in a way that the city perhaps could not.”
Additional reading:
The New York Times explained in a fact check how “Trump Misstates Washington Crime Data to Justify Takeover”;
See also, “Trump’s rhetoric about DC echoes a history of racist narratives about urban crime,” via the Associated Press reporting Tuesday as well.
And lastly today: A Trump DOD official cited literal fake news in his previous job. The president’s top civilian defense official for Latin America, Joseph Humire, ran an alleged think tank which, in the course of its “Tren de Aragua” coverage, cited at least five newspaper articles that didn’t exist, InsightCrime reported Monday.
“One of the false events is dated March 10, 2025—one day before Humire testified in the US Congress regarding immigration and security issues, including Tren de Aragua,” InsightCrime reports. Another “entry dated March 18—one week after Humire’s congressional testimony—contained similarly unsubstantiated information.”
Humire’s former employer at the Center for a Secure Free Society “told InSight Crime that the organization would work to fix the issue,” taking down one of the instances pointed out; but the executive director dodged further inquiry.
For what it’s worth, “Humire and the Department of Defense did not respond to requests for comment,” InsightCrime adds.
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