130 DIE WHEN BOEING CRASHES NEAR TOKYO

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31002, 7 March 1966, Page 15

130 DIE WHEN BOEING CRASHES NEAR TOKYO

Tail Drops Away As Plane Circles Mount Fuji

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter —Copyright) TOKYO, March 6. A 8.0.A.C. Boeing 707 with 130 people aboard crashed and burst into flames in thick forest at the foot of Mount Fuji, about 50 miles south of Tokyo, yesterday. There were no survivors. The jet plunged to the ground 12 minutes after taking off from Tokyo Airport for Hong Kong. It was carrying 119 passengers and a crew of 11.

The disaster came only 18 hours after a Canadian Pacific Airlines plane crashed at Tokyo Airport with the loss of 64 lives.

The pilot of the 707 1 (Captain Bernard Dobson) radioed no hint ■ of an emergency. Japanese officials said they! had not ruled out the possibility of sabotage. The plane was circling! Mount Fuji to give passengers a view of the snow-covered peak. A Japanese television cam- 1

leraman caught the last few, I seconds of the flight. It (looked like a scene out of an j aerial combat film. “Blazing Torch” Half the plane's tail section dropped away in a cloud of i black smoke while the jet • was still in horizontal flight. • Then the plane spiralled to earth, spewing wreckage and | disintegrating in an enormous burst of smoke. 1 Police said the jet turned

/ into a blazing torch as it 11 ploughed through the forest, i! setting fire to trees and scatj tering debris as far as Gotem Ba City, 12 miles away. i Rescue teams struggling : I across rugged country found smoke still rising from the wreckage. The flames were ' extinguished by fire fighters [ Aerial views showed the . main wreckage lying several hundred yards below the top of a rounded, rolling ridge line.

The Premier (Mr Sato) sent the chief of the Japanese Aviation Bureau to the scene by helicopter. A senior official of the Aviation Security Office in Tokyo said the Boeing took off carrying enough fuel for five hours and 35 minutes flying. It was flying a visual flight plan. The official said air stream

disorders were prevalent in the mountainous areas south of Tokyo between an altitude of 3000 ft and 26,000 ft. However, he said he had never heard of a crash being caused by such conditions. Last Bodies The last of the bodies of those aboard was recovered this afternoon. Five hundred police, firemen and Japanese civil defence soldiers searched through the forest fingertip-to-fingertip for the crash victims. On the slopes of Mount Fuji, a brief Buddhist ceremony was held in a small thatched temple for the Japanese victims of the crash. Two Buddhist priests officiated at the solemn rites, attended by about 70 Japanese relatives. An Anglican minister held similar services for the nonJapanese victims.