Japan Air Lines Flight 2

Japan Air Lines Flight 2 was a scheduled passenger flight on November 22, 1968. The plane was a six-month-old Douglas DC-8-62 named Shiga (志賀), flying from Tokyo International Airport (Haneda) to San Francisco International Airport (SFO). Due to heavy fog and other factors, Captain Kohei Asoh crashed the plane near Coyote Point in the shallow waters of San Francisco Bay, two and a half miles short of the runway. All 107 people on board survived the accident without any injuries. Despite the abrupt ditching, and being immersed in salt-water, the aircraft was recovered, repaired, and returned to service.

Accident

Flight 2 was scheduled to depart Tokyo at 5 p.m. (08:00 UTC) on Friday, November 22 and land in San Francisco at 10:15 a.m. (17:15 UTC). Actual departure was delayed to 5:36 p.m. (08:36 UTC) due to required maintenance on the pilot's instrument panel, which was providing inconsistent altitude readings. The flight was conducted without incident over the next eight hours.

As it approached its destination, JAL002 was picked up by local radar in Oakland at 8:54 a.m. (16:54 UTC) when 169 nmi on the 257th radial from the Oakland Vortac and the aircraft was cleared for landing at SFO via a waypoint 21 mi west of the Woodside Vortac station at an altitude of 8000 ft. Oakland TRACON advised the pilots that local visibility at SFO was 3/4 mi and the runway visual range exceeded 6000 ft, recommending the flight to hold. Commanding pilot Captain Kohei Asoh attempted an automatic-coupled Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach due to the heavy fog, which he had never done before on a recorded DC-8-62 flight. JAL002 had started descending from its cruising altitude of 37000 ft at 8:59 a.m. (16:59 UTC), passing through 13000 ft approximately eleven minutes later, when Oakland TRACON provided an update on runway visual range at SFO, which had fallen to 3500 ft. JAL002 continued its descent as air traffic control was handed over to Bay TRACON while close to the Woodside Vortac; the pilot reported an altitude of 8000 ft at 9:12:54.3 a.m. (17:12:54.3 UTC), then 6500 ft at 9:14:11.3 a.m. (17:14:11.3 UTC).

Less than a minute later, Captain Asoh requested that "due to the weather at San Francisco, we'd like a long final [approach], rather than direct to the outer marker", which would put the aircraft 6 mi to the east of the original landing path marker and provide a straighter approach to the runway. Under the ILS approach, the autopilot and flight director would be used to control the aircraft's heading and altitude. At 9:16 a.m. (17:16 UTC), Bay TRACON instructed Asoh to descend to and maintain 4000 ft altitude and turn left to a heading of 040° while holding at an airspeed of 180 kn. Updates were made to the flight's heading and altitude in response to air traffic control, and the final approach was commanded at 9:20:44 a.m. when Bay TRACON instructed JAL002 to make a left turn and assume a heading of 280° as they passed through the localizer in accordance with the ILS approach. Once the localizer was captured, Asoh moved the autopilot selector from VOR LOC to ILS and slowed the plane to 160 kn in accordance with instructions from the ground; he used the radio direction indicator as the primary instrument for the approach rather than the glide slope deviation indicator, which was fluctuating at the time. In addition, because his pressure altimeter had been replaced prior to the start of the flight, Asoh did not trust its readings, especially since it continued to disagree with the copilot's instrument, indicating a brief climb each time the aircraft had leveled off during the flight.

The cloud ceiling was 300 ft and there was little contrast between the sky and the calm waters of the bay. As a result, during the final descent, the too-low altitude was not recognized in time to correct it before hitting the water. Asoh had set his minimum descent altitude alert to 211 ft; the alert was triggered by the radio altimeter, as the pressure altimeter was reading 300 ft at the time; as Asoh checked for runway lights, First Officer Hazen called out visual updates: "[we are] breaking out of the overcast — I cannot see the runway light — we are too low — pull up, pull up". Asoh later stated that he realized the plane was too low once he spotted the water after the plane broke through the fog with an air speed of 177 mi/hour. He grabbed the control stick to gain altitude and advanced the throttles in anticipation of having to abort the landing and perform a go-around, but the plane's main landing gear had already struck the water, first right then left, approximately 2+1/2 mi short of runway 28L. The plane touched down in the water at approximately 9:24:25 a.m. (1724:25 UTC). Passenger Walter Dunbar recalled "We came in alongside the mountains and went into thick fog. The next thing I knew, we were about one foot off the water. She hit, skipped twice, then nosed up."

An early report from the Coast Guard stated the aircraft came to rest upside down. In fact, the plane came to rest on the Bay floor in shallow water approximately 7 ft deep, leaving the forward exits above the waterline. The chief purser, Kazuo Hashimoto, felt there was no panic amongst passengers after landing, and tried to make an announcement with the public address (PA) system. Since the PA system had failed after the landing, he ended up shouting from the forward cabin for passengers to "Be quiet, the plane has reached the bottom of the sea. It will not sink. Do not worry, we are well-fixed for evacuation." The passengers and crew all evacuated the plane on lifeboats, which were towed by police and Coast Guard boats to the nearby Coyote Point Yacht Harbor. Asoh was the last to leave. Asoh returned to the plane after ensuring everyone was safely ashore to gather and return the passengers' personal belongings.

After the incident, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) stated it was the first successful ditching of a jetliner since the inauguration of jet service. The landing may have been assisted by the unusually high tide of 7 ft, compared with the typical water level of 4 ft, leading South San Francisco fire chief John Marchi to declare the ditching "a one-in-a-million shot" as the increased depth gave sufficient cushioning while being shallow enough that exit doors would remain above the water.