Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1045
JAL Cargo (Japan Air Lines) Douglas DC-8 · Stall on takeoff due to pilot error aggravated by intoxication and airframe icing
From Grant County International Airport (MWH) to Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)
Event
- 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
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown
- Event fatalities
- 5 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 5
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Douglas DC-8
- Aircraft type
- Douglas DC-8
- 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
- JA8054
- Operator
- JAL Cargo (Japan Air Lines)
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Grant County International Airport (MWH)To Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)
- 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 135: Air taxi & commuter (international cargo charter)
- 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
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe 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
- Stall
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Airframe ice
- Miscellaneous acts, conditions › Alcoholic impairment of efficiency and judgment
- Pilot in command › Improper operation of flight controls
- Pilot in command › Incapacitation
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1045 was a charter flight on January 13, 1977, from Grant County, Washington, to Tokyo, Japan, with a stopover in Anchorage, Alaska. The McDonnell Douglas DC-8-62AF operating the flight crashed during the initial climb shortly after takeoff from Anchorage, in part because the captain, Hugh L. Marsh, was intoxicated as shown by a blood alcohol level of 0.29; the co-pilot and the other crew were not impaired. All of those on board, including three flight crew members, were killed in the crash.
Flight synopsis
At 05:15 the crew boarded the aircraft; the driver of the crew car stated: "...he was in good condition as far as ways I've seen him sometimes and I made that statement before I ever heard any rumors that he was supposedly drunk or had been partying or whatever" as to whether the pilot appeared intoxicated. Cockpit voice recorder (CVR) data showed that the crew began the prestart checklists at 06:09; CVR data showed the takeoff was normal until the aircraft slowed acceleration from VR to V2 speed; the aircraft stalled almost immediately after reaching V2 speed. At 06:35:39 AST, JAL Cargo Flight 1045 crashed at Anchorage International Airport shortly after takeoff from runway 24L. A witness reportedly saw the flight climb to approximately 100 feet above the ground, veer to the left, and then slide out of the air. All five people on board the aircraft perished in the crash.
Investigation and cause
Cause
In January 1979, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued their final report, concluding:The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident was a stall that resulted from the pilot's control inputs aggravated by airframe icing while the pilot was under the influence of alcohol. Contributing to the cause of this accident was the failure of the other flightcrew members to prevent the captain from attempting the flight.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1045” (revision 1359584350, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB remarks
FAILURE OF OTHER FLIGHTCREW MEMBERS TO PREVENT CAPTAIN FROM ATTEMPTING THE FLIGHT.210MG%.
NTSB's remark from its 1962–1981 archive, as recorded (abbreviated, at most 98 characters): the archive has no narrative
Sources
Wikipedia article: Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1045
- Revision
- 1359584350 · 2026-06-16 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q11508994
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record
- Event ID
- 19770113P066011
- Case number
- Unknown
- Dataset
- historical-pre1982
- Source SHA-256
- abe1a933b4b73583d61684309f7f0610c281e3c1de3537c6471bf2a98ba6481d
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1045" (page 53716991, revision 1359584350); merged with NTSB case NTSB19770113P066011 (PRE1982 tblFirstHalf (one row per aircraft, grouped by date, place and time))
- Date
- NTSB record NTSB19770113P066011: PRE1982 DATE_OCCURRENCE
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record NTSB19770113P066011
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record NTSB19770113P066011: PRE1982 REGIST_NO, ACFT_MAKE, ACFT_MODEL; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record NTSB19770113P066011: operated under Part 135: Air taxi & commuter (charter-cargo-intl)
- Fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19770113P066011: PRE1982 TOTAL_ABRD_FATAL of each aircraft, plus people on the ground and others outside the aircraft
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record NTSB19770113P066011: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1045" and NTSB case NTSB19770113P066011, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- From NTSB's 1962-1981 archive (PRE1982), which holds at most a short remark (98 characters, abbreviated) instead of a narrative; the accident type, phase of flight, causes and conditions are NTSB's codes, decoded as the archive defines them.
- Reviewed means this record passed the site's consistency check, not that it was checked against a narrative or report - there is none to check against.
- The operation category is mapped from the archive's operator and operation codes and has not been reviewed.