DC-8 crash near Kuala Lumpur

Douglas DC-8-62H with serial number 46152 and serial 550 was released in 1971 and sold to the Japanese airline Japan Airlines , which arrived on August 23 and received the flight number JA8051. Its four engines were Pratt & Whitney JT3D-3B models ^[2] .

The aircraft operated flight JAL 715 from Tokyo to Singapore with intermediate landings in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur . The first part of the flight was completed without comment, and with 10 crew members and 69 passengers on board, flight 715 flew from Kaitak Hong Kong Airport. After 2 hours, the airliner entered the area of the Subang airport (Kuala Lumpur). At the direction of the dispatcher, landing was to be carried out on lane 15, while the weather conditions were difficult. During the approach, the crew commander, not seeing the strip, allowed a decrease below the established safe altitude for instrument flights . 4.1 miles (7.6 km) from the end of the strip, flying in a landing configuration 750 feet (228 meters) below a safe altitude, the airliner crashed into a hill height of 260 feet (79 meters). The plane rushed through a plantation of rubber trees, as a result of which the front of the fuselage collapsed and a fire broke out. In a crash, 8 crew members, including the entire flight crew, and 26 passengers, that is, a total of 34 people, were killed. The remaining 45 survivors received injuries of varying severity. At the time of the event, it was the largest air crash in Malaysia, until just 2 months later it was not tripled by the crash of the Malaysian Boeing 737 (100 dead) ^{[3] [1]} .

In memory of the victims, a memorial was erected in the Japanese cemetery in Malaysia ^[4] .

The likely cause of the disaster was the mistake of the crew commander, who, without observing the runway in sight, allowed to leave at a safe height and continued to decline until the plane crashed into the ground. One of the concomitant reasons was the lack of control of the commander over the flight path in difficult weather conditions, while being in the waiting area, where several more aircraft were located. But an even more important concomitant reason was the non-interference of the co-pilot in the actions of the commander, when he began to violate the instructions established by the company ^[3] .