Japan Air Lines Flight 715

Japan Air Lines Flight 715 was a regular scheduled flight that crashed on approach to Subang Airport in Malaysia on 27 September 1977. The aircraft was a McDonnell Douglas DC-8, registration JA8051, on a flight from Haneda Airport in Tokyo, to Singapore, with stopovers at Hong Kong, and Subang Airport, Malaysia. Of the 69 passengers and ten crew on board, 34 died, whilst the other 45 survived with injuries. It was the second-deadliest aviation disaster to occur in Malaysia at the time.

Accident

Two hours into the flight, air traffic control at Subang Airport told flight 715 to start its approach and land on runway 15. The flight crew started their approach, putting the landing gear down and extending the flaps. The aircraft descended below minimum descent altitude of 750 ft, then at 300 ft, it crashed into the side of a hill 4 miles from the airport, near the Elmina Estate. The aircraft broke on impact, and a fire erupted, which was extinguished by airport rescue and firefighting.

The accident killed 34 people: eight of the 10 crew and 26 of the 69 passengers. Forty-five survivors, among the passengers and crew, were taken to a hospital. The remains from the crash could be found in the soil surrounding the estate until 2011. Most of the land now is being converted to developments.

A memorial was built in the Japanese cemetery in Kuala Lumpur.

The crash was the second-deadliest aviation disaster to occur in Malaysia until the crash of Malaysian Airline System Flight 653, two months later, with 100 fatalities.