All Nippon Airways cargo aircraft disappearance

The All Nippon Airways cargo aircraft disappearance (Zennikkū kamotsuki shissō jiko) was an aviation accident in February 1965 (Shōwa 40) in which an All Nippon Airways cargo aircraft disappeared while cruising.

It was later found to have crashed, but the aircraft was found only 22 months later, and moreover at a location far outside the search area.

Outline of the accident

The All Nippon Airways Douglas DC-3 dedicated cargo aircraft (registration JA5080, built in 1942) disappeared in the early hours of 14 February 1965. At the time, All Nippon Airways operated late-night cargo flights carrying mail and other items.

The missing cargo aircraft took off from Osaka International Airport at 3:50 am carrying 144 pieces of cargo weighing 1,870 kg. The cargo included instruments (worth about 1,000,000 yen) to be used in Tokyo concerts by the world-famous tango orchestra, the Alfred Hause Tango Orchestra, which accounted for 2/3 of all the cargo on board.

At 4:25 am the aircraft reported to the Tokyo air traffic control centre “Passing Kōwa VOR on the Chita Peninsula, Aichi Prefecture; expect to pass Hamamatsu at 4:39”, and then disappeared.

The aircraft was scheduled to land at Tokyo's Haneda Airport at 5:45 am, but it carried only 360 gallons of fuel, enough for 4 hours, so it was certain that it had met with disaster and a large-scale search was launched. The orchestra that had lost its instruments performed its Tokyo concert on the 14th with instruments borrowed from the NHK Symphony Orchestra.

Cause of the accident

The crashed Douglas DC-3 was not equipped with black boxes (flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder), so the cause of the accident was unknown.

The weather on the day of the accident was bad, and the aircraft had been scheduled to fly from Tokyo to Osaka and take off from Osaka on the return leg at around 3:00 am, but take-off was delayed by severe thunderstorms. It took off after the weather improved, but at around 4:30 am, when it is believed to have met with disaster, the Nagoya area was hit by fierce thunderstorms.

It is therefore thought that the aircraft made a large left turn from the Chita Peninsula and crashed deep in the mountains of Shizuoka Prefecture because its instruments malfunctioned in the severe thunderstorms and gusts as a warm front was moving east, and that it crashed because it was hit in the air by wind shear (turbulence) or a direct lightning strike, but this has not been confirmed.