Japan Airlines Boeing 747-300 incident
Boeing 747-300 · Incident: abrupt maneuver on approach
From Narita International Airport (RJAA) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX87IA303
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Boeing 747-300
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 747
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- J8163
- Operator
- Japan Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Narita International Airport (RJAA), Tokyo, JAPANTo Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Los Angeles, CA
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 129: Foreign
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Abrupt maneuver
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Maneuver, excessive
- Pilot in command › Planned approach, improper
- Pilot in command › Proper alignment, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DRG ARR, JAPAN AIRLINE FLT 62 (BOEING 747, JA-8163) WAS INITIALLY VECTORED (BY LAX ARTCC) FOR AN ILS RWY 24R APCH IN REDUCED VISIBILITY (HAZE). BFR TURNING FINAL, FLT 62 WAS ADZD OF AN ACFT THAT WAS 4 MI AHEAD. FLT 62 RPRTD THAT THEY HAD THE ACFT IN SIGHT. THE CTLR TOLD THEM TO TURN TO 230 DEG FOR FINAL APCH & TO FOLLOW THE ACFT AHEAD, THEN CLRD THE FLT FOR A VISUAL APCH TO RWY 24R. AFTER CHGG TO TWR FREQ, THE TWR CTLR (LC-2) TOLD THE FLT TO CHG TO RWY 24L & THEN CLRDTHEM TO LAND. THE FLT ACKNOWLEDGED. LC-2 NOTED THE ACFT WAS TRACKING RGT OF COURSE & ASKED THE FLT TO VERIFY THE RWY WASIN SIGHT. THE CREW REPLIED THE RWY WAS NOT IN SIGHT & CONTD DSCNDG ON AN INBND HDG. LC-2 TOLD THE FLT THEY WOULD HAVE TOTURN SOUTHBOUND, THEN TOLD THEM TO 'TURN LEFT 10 DEG.' SUBSEQUENTLY, WHEN THE ACFT WAS ABT 3/4 MI EAST & 1 MI NORTH OF THE THRESHOLD AT 700 TO 800 FT, THE CREW MADE AN ABRUPT LEFT TURN TO ALIGN THE ACFT WITH THE RWY BY TURNING FM A HDG OF 240 DEG TO 175 DEG & THEN TURNING BACK TO THE RGT. THE ACFT ROLLED OUT OF THE TURN, JUST BFR TOUCHING DOWN ON THE RWY.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX87IA303
- Event ID
- 20001213X31839
- Case number
- LAX87IA303
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 76c83c967c795dc28e9a4f18b9d8fd2337ee13414a81d7fd383ba6449fb4fb54; retrieved 2026-09-18T19:39:05.330Z.