SAFETY

JAL ADMITS SAFETY WASN'T TOP PRIORITY

In an astonishing admission aimed at explaining its troubled record in recent months, Japan Airlines on Thursday said safety had not been its top priority.

All efforts and attention were focused on punctuality. The airline was careless about safety, JAL said in a report to the transport ministry on steps it is taking to restore its tarnished reputation.

JAL is under government orders to pull itself together following a string of mishaps, hence Thursday's report on its measures to prevent a recurrence of maintenance mistakes and flight regulation violations.

And in a case of worst-possible timing, part of the flap from the wing of a JAL aircraft that landed at Narita International Airport on Thursday was found to have fallen off in flight, officials said.

Flight 73, carrying 428 passengers and crew members, arrived at 5:10 p.m. from Honolulu. Mechanics found the component had detached from the main left wing. The airport's 4,000-meter runway that the aircraft used was closed for three minutes from 6 p.m. to search for the missing part. It was not found. JAL said the mishap did not compromise flight safety.

Upon receiving JAL's report, officials of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said they will regularly inspect facilities and airports used by the airline to confirm that the company's safety measures are being observed.

The ministry also grounded a JAL pilot for one month beginning today for starting takeoff procedures without clearance from air traffic control at New Chitose Airport near Sapporo. The pilot of the Tokyo-bound flight was forced to abort takeoff at the last moment in January because another aircraft had just landed on the runway about a kilometer away.

In another incident, at Inchon Airport in South Korea, the pilot and co-pilot of a flight bound for Narita misheard the control tower's instructions to wait, and taxied onto the runway, forcing another plane to restart landing procedures.

Reprimands or warnings were issued in both incidents.

On March 17, a clearly fed-up transport ministry ordered JAL to improve its operations.

In its report to the transport ministry on Thursday, JAL acknowledged the string of mishaps stemmed from a lack of awareness within the organization that safety should be the main priority. The company said maintaining reliable flight departures took precedence over safety. It also cited strains between management and employees resulting from the merger of the old Japan Airlines and Japan Air System.

The JAL report said management will hold 100 meetings with workers over a period of two months to listen to the views of rank and file workers and ram home the need to focus on safety.

The company said it will also review its maintenance and flight regulations.

In addition, JAL said it would set up a "safety headquarters" to ensure that information is shared and immediate directions are issued in emergencies.

Kazuo Kitagawa, the transport minister, said after receiving the JAL report: "Problems have continued even after JAL received the ministry's improvement order (in March). This is an extraordinary situation. The public rightly remains critical of JAL. So I implore JAL to unite in ensuring safety."

"There are no other examples of an airline coming under such ministry monitoring," noted an official with the ministry's Civil Aviation Bureau.(IHT/Asahi: April 15,2005).