All Nippon Airways Flight 60

All Nippon Airways Flight 60 was a Boeing 727-81 aircraft making a domestic commercial flight in Japan from Sapporo Chitose Airport to Tokyo Haneda International Airport. On February 4, 1966, the plane crashed into Tokyo Bay about 10.4 km from Haneda in clear weather conditions while on a night approach. All 133 people on board died. The accident was the worst involving a single aircraft in Japan and the deadliest accident in the country until All Nippon Airways Flight 58 crashed five years later, killing 162 people.

Accident description

Flying in clear weather, ANA Flight 60 was a few minutes away from Haneda Airport when its pilot radioed that he would land visually without instruments. The aircraft then disappeared from radar screens.

Villagers along the shore and the pilot of another plane said they saw flames in the sky at about 7 p.m., which was approximately the time that the plane was due to land. Fishermen and Japanese Defense Force boats retrieved approximately 20 bodies from the bay when an airline spokesman announced that the fuselage had been found with scores of bodies inside. The spokesman said this led to the belief that all 133 persons on board were dead. Grappling hooks from a Coast Guard boat brought up the wreckage.

The tail of the aircraft, including at least two of the three engines, the vertical stabilizer, and the horizontal stabilizer were recovered mostly intact. The rest of the aircraft had disintegrated on impact. The death toll of 133 made the crash the world's deadliest single-aircraft accident at the time, as well as the second-deadliest aviation accident behind the 1960 New York mid-air collision. The cause of the accident was never determined. This aircraft was not equipped with flight recorders.