Struggle in DC8 cockpit before Tokyo crash

Press, 15 February 1982, Page 1

Struggle in DC8 cockpit before Tokyo crash

NZPA Tokyo Investigators into the crash of the Japan Air Lines DCS in which 24 people died on Tuesday have said there was a struggle in the cockpit of the aircraft only moments before it fell into Tokyo Bay. 275 m short of the main runway at Haneda Airport, the “New York Times" News Service has reported. After four days of investigation into the crash,, the Tokyo police have released findings that point to pilot error as the cause of the accident. The police said that one of the airliner’s four engines was put into reverse thrust just before the crash, which caused the DCB to lose altitude sharply on its approach run. Police investigators and

Japan Air . Lines officials have not made a ■ formal statement about who was responsible for the extraordinary action. But Japanese newspapers have quoted unidentified officials as saying that Captain Seiji Katagiri. aged 35. put the engine into reverse using a control lever in the cockpit.

Investigators said that •there was a struggle in the cockpit just before the crash. The flight engineer. Mr Yoshimi Ozaki, aged 48. “stood up to seize the captain," according to the Kyodo News Agency.

The police said that the copilot, Mr Yoshifumi Ishikawa. aged 33. tried to pull back the controls to bring the DCB. which was carrying 174 people including a crew

of eight, out of a nose dive, but was unable to carry out the manoeuvre for reasons they did not clarify.

Circumstantial evidence, the Japanese press said, suggested that the pilot lost his senses at the controls as the aircraft was coming in to land. Press reports cited as evidence a voice recording allegedly showing that "Captain Ka’tagiri was in an abnormal state, crying out loud in the cockpit" on the approach. still some distance from the airport. The president of Japan Air Lines. Mr Yasumoto Takagi, told a news conference on Friday that Captain Katagiri had a history of "psychosomatic illness’." but he' said that airline doctors passed him as fit for duties after tht 1 illness in late 1980.