All Nippon Airways Flight 140
Boeing 737-781 · In-flight upset due to pilot error
From Naha International Airport (OKA) to Tokyo Haneda International Airport (HND)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA11WA105
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 117
- Survivors
- 117
- 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
- 2
- 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
- Not recorded
Boeing 737-781
- Flight
- NH140
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- 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
- JA16AN
- Operator
- All Nippon Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- 0
- Route
- From Naha International Airport (OKA)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 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Not plotted · Not plotted: the Wikipedia article gives no coordinates, and its site names no town or airport that matches exactly.
From the Wikipedia article
All Nippon Airways Flight 140 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight en route from Naha Airport to Haneda Airport. On 6 September 2011, the plane experienced an in-flight upset over the coast of Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, inverting upside down and diving steeply. Two of the 117 on board were injured, but there were no fatalities.
Incident
At 21:15, Flight 140 took off from Naha Airport and was cruising at an altitude of 41,000 feet (12,500 meters). At 22:46:42, the captain left the cockpit to use the restroom. At 22:48:04, air traffic control instructed the aircraft to change course and the co-pilot performed the operation. During that, the captain returned from the restroom and signaled to re-enter the cockpit. The co-pilot accidentally turned the rudder trim switch instead of the door-lock selector, which caused the plane to bank to the left, reaching a maximum left bank of 131.7° degrees. The aircraft then entered a steep dive, plunging down 6,000 feet, reaching 2.68 G's. The co-pilot was able to regain control of the aircraft at 35,000 feet (10,700 meters). The captain returned to the cockpit and took over the controls. The crew requested to maintain 36,000 feet. At around 23:30, the crew landed at Haneda Airport without further incident. Two cabin crew members sustained minor injuries: one with a sprained neck and one with scratches; and were transported to a local hospital. There were no fatalities among the 117 passengers and crew as the passengers were all wearing seatbelts.
In an interview after the incident, the captain said that he was unable to stand during the rapid descent and that he heard an alarm sound from the cockpit. Many passengers did not realize that the aircraft had experienced an upset due to flying at night with no visual references out the window.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) conducted the investigation. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) had been overwritten due to its 30-minute recording time limit and thus no data could be recovered from it.
Text from the Wikipedia article “All Nippon Airways Flight 140” (revision 1369364995, 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 narrative
On September 6, 2011, at 22:50 local time (13:50 UTC), a Boeing 737-700, registration JA16AN, operated by Air Nippon Co., Ltd., entered an unusual attitude and lost altitude about 43km south of Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, as the aircraft was in cruise at an altitude of about 41,000 feet. The aircraft recovered and landed at Tokyo International Airport, Tokyo, Japan. There was no damage to the aircraft, and 2 of the 117 persons on board the aircraft sustained minor injuries.
The incident is being investigated by the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB). The NTSB has designated a U.S. Accredited Representative as the state of manufacture of the aircraft under the provisions of ICAO Annex 13. All inquiries should be directed to the JTSB at the following:
Japan Transport Safety Board Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Kasumigaseki 2-1-2, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100-8918 Japan
website: http://www.mlit.go.jp/jtsb/english.html
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: All Nippon Airways Flight 140
- Revision
- 1369364995 · 2026-08-14 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q97274518
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA11WA105
- Event ID
- 20110929X43514
- Case number
- DCA11WA105
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "All Nippon Airways Flight 140" (page 83331971, revision 1369364995); merged with NTSB case DCA11WA105 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: none
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA11WA105
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "All Nippon Airways Flight 140" and NTSB case DCA11WA105, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.