Ueno: Victims of the 1985 crash of a Japan Airlines jumbo jet were remembered at the mountainous crash site in the eastern Japan prefecture of Gunma on Saturday, which marked the 38th anniversary of the tragedy.
Bereaved relatives and others climbed the Osutaka Ridge in the village of Ueno to offer prayers at grave markers with the names of the victims that were erected at places where their remains were found.
The accident, which occurred on Aug. 12, 1985, has been the world’s deadliest single aircraft accident, leaving 520 passengers and crew members dead. Only four people survived.
Hitoshi Yoshimura, 49, who lost his father, Kazuo, then 43, in the accident, climbed the mountain with his 19-year-old daughter, Sayaka, for the first time in about 10 years, and told his father’s grave marker, “Watch over my family.”
“I’m glad that I could come,” Yoshimura, from the city of Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, said, after he had been unable to visit the site due to being busy moving from the eastern city of Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, and amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sayaka, who climbed the mountain for the second time, said: “As I grew up, I learned how catastrophic the accident was. I want to see my grandfather.”
Haruo Nakamura, 80, from the city of Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, which borders Gunma, prayed for his elder sister’s husband, Hiroshi Sada, then 53. “Here I came, at last,” Nakamura said, offering canned beer to Sada’s grave marker.
Nakamura said climbing the mountain is hard for him as he is old now. But he added, “I hope I can come here again next year.”
A total of 265 people from 75 families came to climb the Osutaka Ridge on the anniversary, up by 115 from last year.
In recent years, many bereaved relatives chose not to climb, mainly because of their age. Against this background, internet services are offered on the mountain this year, for three days through Sunday, to enable those climbing the mountain to share their experiences with relatives away from the place.
At a garden built at the foot of the Osutaka Ridge, a memorial service will be held from 6:56 p.m., the time when the accident happened 38 years ago. In the incident, JAL Flight 123 crashed into the Osutaka Ridge after leaving Haneda airport in Tokyo for Osaka International Airport in western Japan.
Bereaved family members will join the annual memorial service in person for the first time in four years after the event was held on a smaller scale for the last three years due to the pandemic.
JAL President Yuji Akasaka will attend the ceremony after offering flowers to a monument set up for the victims at the crash site.
JIJI Press