1970–1974 • On 22 February 1970, a teenage boy, Keith Sapsford, climbed into the cargo area of a
Douglas DC-8, registration JA8031, operating Flight 772 from Sydney to Tokyo. As the plane was taking off, he fell to his death. Unknowingly, a photographer photographed the event. • On 31 March 1970,
Yodo,
Flight 351, operated by a
Boeing 727, was
hijacked by the
Japanese Red Army (JRA) while en route from Tokyo to Fukuoka. The nine hijackers released all 122 passengers and seven crew members at
Fukuoka Airport and
Seoul's
Gimpo International Airport, before proceeding to
Pyongyang Sunan International Airport, where they surrendered themselves to the
North Korean authorities. • On
14 June 1972,
Akan,
Flight 471, operated by a
Douglas DC-8, struck the banks of
River Yamuna, about east of
New Delhi's
Palam International Airport (Now known as
IGI Airport). The crash killed 10 out of 11 crew members, 72 out of 76 passengers on board and three people on the ground died, including famous Brazilian actress
Leila Diniz and 16 Americans.
Japanese investigators claimed a false glide path signal was responsible for the descent into terrain, while
Indian investigators claimed it was caused by the JAL crew's disregard of laid down procedures and the abandonment of all instrument indications without properly ensuring sighting of the runway. • On 24 September 1972,
Haruna,
Flight 472, operated by a
Douglas DC-8 en route to
Bombay, landed at
Juhu Airport runway 08, instead of
Bombay Airport runway 09. The aircraft overran the runway through a ditch. The visibility at the time was , decreasing to . There were no injuries reported, but the aircraft was written off. • On 6 November 1972, Flight 351, a
Boeing 727, was hijacked at during a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka. Armed with a pistol, he demanded $2 million and to be flown to Cuba. The aircraft returned to Tokyo, where a DC-8 was waiting to fly him to Vancouver and on to Cuba. After releasing most of the hostages, he wanted to board the DC-8 while holding three crewmembers hostage. While entering the DC-8 he was overpowered by police. • On
28 November 1972,
Hida,
Flight 446, operated by a
Douglas DC-8 from
Tokyo to
Moscow, climbed to with a supercritical angle of attack. The aircraft lost height, hit the ground and burst into flames. Nine of the 14 crew members and 52 of the 62 passengers died in the accident. The probable cause was "the supercritical angle of attack was caused by either an inadvertent spoiler-extension in flight, or a loss of control following a number one or two engine failure (due to icing)". • On 20 July 1973,
Flight 404, operated by a
Boeing 747-200B, was hijacked by four men and a woman, shortly after leaving
Amsterdam. An accidental explosion of the explosive device the woman hijacker was carrying occurred and she was killed. The aircraft was destined for
Anchorage but landed at
Dubai and later took off for
Damascus and
Benghazi. Eventually, all the passengers and crew members were released and the aircraft was blown up on 23 July. • On 12 March 1974, Flight 903, a
Boeing 747SR, was hijacked at Naha Airport by a Japanese man demanding $56 million (much of it in $1000 bills) to study biology and geology. He carried a black suitcase, which he stated contained a bomb or weapons. Seven hours later the man was arrested by police officers disguised as airport workers. The suitcase ultimately contained 16000 yen, an airline ticket, a bottle of vitamins, a sweater and a pair of trousers. • On 15 July 1974, a Japan Air Lines DC-8 was hijacked by a male passenger who demanded the release of the leader of the Japanese Red Army (JRA). When this demand wasn't met, he then demanded to be flown to Nagoya. After landing at Nagoya the hijacker remained on the flight deck with the pilots. Meanwhile, the flight attendants opened an emergency exit to allow the passengers to escape. Police then stormed the aircraft and arrested the hijacker.
1975–1979 • In February 1975, a
Japan Air Lines flight from Tokyo to Paris, making fuel stops in
Anchorage and Copenhagen, had 196 passengers and one stewardess, out of 343 on board, fell ill with food poisoning, 143 of whom were seriously ill enough to need hospitalising when the plane reached Copenhagen, 30 of those
critically ill. The source of the food poisoning was ham contaminated with
Staphylococci from the infected cuts on the fingers of a cook in Anchorage. The ham was used in omelettes which were stored at a high temperature on the plane instead of being chilled, allowing time for the bacteria to multiply and produce an
exotoxin that is not destroyed by cooking. The head of Japan Airlines catering service in Anchorage committed suicide shortly afterwards and was the only fatality of the incident. It was only luck that the pilots did not eat the omelettes (their body clocks were not in the right time zone for breakfast) and become incapacitated, leading some airlines to forbid pilots eating certain foods on the passenger menu. • On 9 April 1975, Flight 514, operated by a
Boeing 747SR, was hijacked by a man who pointed a gun at a steward and demanded 30 million yen (around $100,000). After landing at Tokyo, police boarded the aircraft and overpowered the hijacker while he was speaking to the pilot. Although the hijacker fired his gun once during the incident, no one was injured. • On 16 December 1975, Flight 422, operated by a
Boeing 747-200B (), slid off the north side of the east–west
taxiway at
Anchorage International Airport during taxi for a takeoff on runway 06R. The aircraft weathercocked about 70 degrees to the left and slid backward down a snow-covered embankment with an average slope of -13 degrees. The aircraft came to a stop on a heading of 150 degrees on a service road about from, and below, the taxiway surface. • On 5 January 1976, Flight 768, operated by a
Douglas DC-8, was hijacked by two Filipino passengers armed with pistols and explosives at
Manila Airport before takeoff. Negotiations began and all but eight passengers were released. The hijackers demanded a free flight to Japan, but when Japanese authorities refused to give the aircraft permission to land, the hijackers surrendered. • On
13 January 1977,
Cargo Flight 1045, a
Douglas DC-8 freighter, stalled after liftoff from
Anchorage International Airport and crashed past the runway. The aircraft was on a non-scheduled operation and all five occupants on board, including three crew members and two passengers, were killed. The aircraft began takeoff at the wrong position on the runway and his decision was not questioned by his fellow crew members. The captain's initial blood alcohol level was ; was the legal intoxication limit for the state of
Alaska. The probable cause was "a stall that resulted from the pilot's control inputs aggravated by airframe icing while the pilot was under the influence of alcohol. Contributing to the cause of this accident was the failure of the other flightcrew members to prevent the captain from attempting the flight". • On
27 September 1977,
Flight 715, operated by a
Douglas DC-8 from
Hong Kong to
Kuala Lumpur, struck a hill on approach during a
thunderstorm, short of the runway, while on a
VOR approach to runway 15. The fatalities for the accident included eight crew members and 26 passengers. • On 28 September 1977,
Flight 472, operated by a
Douglas DC-8, was hijacked by the JRA. The aircraft was en route from
Paris to
Tokyo with 156 people on board, made a scheduled stop in Bombay. Shortly after taking off from Bombay, five armed JRA members hijacked the aircraft and ordered to be flown to
Dacca,
Bangladesh. At Dacca (now Dhaka), the hijackers took the passengers and crew hostage, demanding $6 million and the release of nine imprisoned JRA members. A
chartered JAL flight carried the money and six of the nine imprisoned JRA members to Dacca, where the exchange took place on October 2. The hijackers released 118 passengers and crew members, and all remaining hostages were freed later. • On 2 June 1978,
Flight 115, operated by a
Boeing 747SR, suffered a tailstrike while landing at Osaka; two passengers were seriously injured and another 23 suffered minor injuries. Although the aircraft was repaired in June and July 1978, it was lost in 1985 in the crash of JAL 123 (The worst single-aircraft air disaster) . • On 23 November 1979, a Japan Air Lines
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 was hijacked shortly after takeoff from Osaka by a male passenger. He used a plastic knife and a bottle opener and demanded to be flown to the Soviet Union. The aircraft diverted to Narita Airport to refuel; the hijacker was overpowered before the aircraft was refueled. == 1980s ==