On 12 August 1985 JAL flight 123, which was a Boeing 747, lifted off from Haneda Tokyo International Airport for Osaka airport, some 215 miles away, at 6:12 p.m. After a normal takeoff the airplane reached its cruising altitude of 7200m, 12 minutes into the flight there were 2 explosions. The first explosion occurred when the aircraft’s aft pressure bulkhead ruptured causing an explosive decompression. The decompression caused the pressurized air from the cabin to rush out of the airplane which caused the vertical stabilizer of the aircraft to be ripped off, this caused the second explosion. The decompression also caused all four hydraulic lines of the aircraft to be cleaved. Oxygen masks for the passengers were deployed as the decompression …show more content…
Under no circumstances should a maintenance engineer alter the initial plan just to make things fit. The pilot should find the nearest landing strip and try to land the airplane as soon as possible. In the situation of an airplane crash or any unfortunate accident we should start the rescue mission as early as possible to minimize the casualties. • What Could be Done to Avoid the Accident To avoid such accidents the repair should have been done properly. If there is a fitting problem in a plan then a new design should be devised as to avoid any mishap. We should try replacing the whole component if possible regardless of the extra cost as nothing is more expensive than human life. The pilot should have landed at the nearby Nagoya Airfield as the airplane was constantly losing altitude and landing somewhere near would have been more feasible. We should schedule periodical checking of any repair done on an aircraft to make sure that there is no metal fatigue on the structure. • Comments This was a very unfortunate incident. The delay of the rescue mission for 14 hours increased the number of casualties. The Japanese government should have initiated the rescue mission as soon as the place crashed. As an engineer it is our duty to make sure our work is flawless and is accordance with the proposed