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All Nippon Airways training aircraft Shimojishima take-off accident

30 May 1988 · Shimojishima Airport, Japan

Boeing 737 · Failed take-off due to pilot error

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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
Occurrence
Event fatalities
0 · all aircraft and ground
Ground fatalities
Unknown
Occupants
Unknown
Survivors
3
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
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

Boeing 737

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
JA8455
Onboard fatalities
0
Route
From not recordedTo not recorded

Cause areas

  • Personnel issues › Task performance
  • Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
  • Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena

From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.

Approximate · Estimated position: Shimojishima Airport, the airport the Wikipedia article names as the site. Where on or near it is not known.

From the Wikipedia article

The All Nippon Airways training aircraft Shimojishima take-off accident (Zennikkū kunren-ki Shimojishima ririku shippai jiko) is an aviation accident involving an All Nippon Airways aircraft that occurred at Shimojishima Airport on 30 May 1988 (Showa 63).

Overview of the accident

At around 11:38 am on 30 May 1988 (Showa 63), an All Nippon Airways Boeing 737-200 that was conducting take-off training with one engine shut down at Shimojishima Airport in Okinawa Prefecture departed the runway and came to a stop on the airport apron. A flight instructor and 2 trainees, a total of 3 people, were on board the aircraft, but there were no casualties.

The training on this occasion was to begin with single-engine simulated failure training (take-off training with the engine on one side shut down), and at 11:36 take-off clearance was obtained from the control tower. At this time, the weather information from the control tower gave the wind direction as 100 degrees magnetic (a wind from west by north to east by south) and the wind speed as 20 knots (wind speed about 10 m). Meanwhile, the trainee had by then received 16 training sessions in the simulator and 4 sessions of flight training in the actual aircraft, but the crosswind in training up to then had been at most around 10 knots (wind speed about 5 m), so this was a strong crosswind that the trainee had not experienced.

The take-off roll began, and after reaching the take-off decision speed as planned, the instructor reduced the thrust of the left engine to idle. As stated above, this was part of the planned training content. However, with the trainee's excessive aileron input and insufficient rudder input, the aircraft's bank to the left did not stop.

For this reason, the instructor immediately took over the controls, restored power to the left engine and then operated the control surfaces, but it was too late, and the left wingtip touched the ground. The aircraft went on to depart the runway, crossed the grass strip along the runway, and came to a stop in the southern part of the airport apron.

The accident aircraft sustained damage to various parts, and although fuel leaked from the damaged left wing, no one was injured. Following this accident, Shimojishima Airport also closed the runway for 24 minutes.

Investigation and cause

Cause

With effect from 30 September 1988, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission published an aircraft accident investigation report stating that the cause of this accident was that, under a strong crosswind, the control inputs of the trainee, who had not received sufficient training in dealing with crosswinds, were not accurate, so the aircraft yawed sharply to the left and then rolled to the left, resulting in the left wingtip and other parts touching the ground, and that although the flight instructor took recovery action, it was not successful because the time until the left wingtip and other parts touched the ground was extremely short.

The accident aircraft was repaired and used again, but was sold in 1998.

Translated into English with AI assistance from the Japanese Wikipedia article “全日空訓練機下地島離陸失敗事故” (revision 106009208, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article

Sources

Japanese Wikipedia article: 全日空訓練機下地島離陸失敗事故
Article
全日空訓練機下地島離陸失敗事故
Translation
Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
Revision
106009208 · 2025-08-15 · retrieved 2026-09-19
Wikidata
Q11390308
Licence
Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
Record
ja Wikipedia article "全日空訓練機下地島離陸失敗事故" (page 2082373, revision 106009208), translated into English with AI assistance
Date
Wikipedia article: the date in its opening sentence (the infobox gives none to the day)
Place and country
Wikipedia infobox: site
Map position
airport the Wikipedia infobox site names (OurAirports, exact name)
Aircraft, operator and route
Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
Operation
operator named as an airline in the infobox
Fatalities
Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
Ground fatalities
not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
Summary
Wikipedia article lead
Source notes (1)
  • Wikipedia · Facts from the Japanese Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.