Ministry of Transport reviews safety at JAL after series of incidents

Japan’s Transport Ministry conducted an inspection at a Japan Airlines Co. office at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Friday following a series of incidents involving the airline’s aircraft, including an incident the previous day in which two jets touched their wings while taxiing, officials said.

Four officials from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism entered the office next to an aircraft maintenance facility to conduct an extraordinary audit and hearings to evaluate the airline’s safety procedures and processes.

The ministry will instruct JAL to correct any problems if the current regulations are found to have deficiencies, it said.

Officials from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism enter a Japan Airlines Co. office at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on May 24, 2024, to conduct an extraordinary inspection. (Kyodo)

“We take this (series of incidents at JAL) seriously and are making every effort to restore confidence in flight safety,” Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito said at a press conference.

A JAL spokesman echoed the minister’s statement, saying the airline takes the review seriously and vows to “restore confidence” under the ministry’s guidance.

On Thursday, a JAL plane preparing to take off struck the wing of another airline plane taxiing to a gate, damaging the wingtips of both planes.

There had previously been an incident on May 10 at Fukuoka Airport in southwestern Japan, in which the pilot of a JAL aircraft did not correctly repeat the instructions of an air traffic controller and crossed a hold line to a runway without permission from the control tower.

In November, a JAL plane entered the wrong runway at a US airport and another plane crossed a stop line in February, also in the United States.

The ministry said the case at Fukuoka airport would be dealt with by a commission investigating the fatal collision between a JAL passenger plane and a Japan Coast Guard aircraft at Haneda in January, and ways to prevent a recurrence of the accident would be considered.

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