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Flight 123 was running only twelve minutes behind its scheduled departure when it lifted off at 6:12 p.m. Tokyo time. Following its flight plan, the big plane headed south, climbed to 24,000 ft., then banked sharply right, toward the west, as it passed near the small island of Oshima, south of Haneda. At 6:25 p.m., when the aircraft was 20 miles west of the island and approaching the Izu Peninsula, Tokyo-area air-traffic controllers caught the first hint of danger...
Tokyo air-traffic control directed the troubled aircraft to turn to the east for a return to Haneda. At this point, radar showed the plane at 24,500 ft., flying at 471 m.p.h. But at 6:28 p.m., the radar indicated Flight 123 was heading northwest instead of east. Radioed Tokyo: "Fly magnetic 90 degrees." The reply from the craft was ominous: "But now uncontrol...
...cabin, Ochiai felt the plane go into what she called a hira-hira, a word that describes the falling of a leaf, gentle and twisting. Radar now placed the plane at 21,860 ft., near the altitude its crew had requested. About three minutes later, Tokyo told the crew where the plane was: "You are now 72 nautical miles from Nagoya. Do you want to land at Nagoya?" A coastal city, Nagoya is 160 miles southwest of Tokyo. But the crew wished to get back to Haneda. The aircraft was now climbing again, back to 24,500 ft., and slowing...
...only hint of a potential cause of the trouble came at 6:33 p.m., and it turned out to be misleading. "R5 broken," a crewman reported by radio. "Cabin-pressure drop." The reference was to the right rear door of the plane through which food and supplies are normally brought into the cabin. The door had not been opened at Haneda before takeoff...
...difficulty breathing. The aircraft's purser now told the passengers that there was an emergency. Ochiai helped the on-duty attendants instruct the passengers on how to strap on their life preservers and assume a head-down, forward-leaning position for a possible crash landing. Then, she said, the plane went into a Dutch roll, dipping one wing, then the other. Apparently, Captain Takahama was trying to steer the aircraft by alternately increasing power to the left and the right engines. The maneuver produced a yawing and rolling motion as though Flight 123 were cutting figure-eights...