falling 18,000 feet a minute. just before 7:00 p.m., jal flight 123 drops off the radar screen. it has slammed into a mountain at nearly 400 miles an hour. these are the first daylight pictures from the sight of what appears to be the worst single airline crash ever. a 747 has gone down. it s believed that all 524 people on board were killed. coming up next, investigators face together the grim task of piecing together the mystery. we had a catastrophic scene, we have millions of airplane parts scattered over the mountain side. but among the wreckage a miraculous discovery. with no vegetable nutrition?
at nearly 400 miles an hour. these are the first daylight pictures from the sight of what appears to be the worst single airline crash ever. a 747 has gone down. it s believed that all 524 people on board were killed. coming up next, investigators face together the grim task of piecing together the mystery. we had a catastrophic scene, we have millions of airplane parts scattered over the mountain side. but among the wreckage a miraculous discovery.
slammed into a mountain northwest of tokyo. when investigators reach the crash site, they begin combing the wreckage for clues. miraculously, they find something they didn t expect two women and two young girls have survived. the four people that survived the accident were seated in the very aft section of the airplane. so when the airplane struck the ground, the tail section broke from the main section of the fuselage and was thrown well away from the impact point. takashi hoped his sister would be among the survivors. sadly, that was not the case. translator: she only had a scar here, on the chin. there was no damage to the rest of the body. i recognized her right away. testimony from those who did survive will later prove valuable. but in the meantime, there are countless other clues to pursue.
angeles. they sift through the wreckage and look to the plane s two flight recorders for clues. within days of the crash, it began to zero in on a part called the pylon. it has a 13-inch crack they believe was caused by fatigue prior to the crash, which maintenance inspections had missed. what exactly is a pylon? aviation consultant john cox showed us at evergreen international, an airplane maintenance and storage facility outside tucson, arizona. you can see the pylon assembly, on which the engine rests on the pylon and it s attached to the wing. it looks like an arm that the engine is hanging off of. that s a very complex piece of structure. it has to be designed to take a heck of a load from the engines. investigators also scrutinize the plane s service history. that s where the puzzle pieces start to come together. it turns out not to be a design flaw.
went right into the ground. everything in its path was blown into a sheet of flame. initially, ntsb investigators are baffled what could have caused a failure of this magnitude. this is all that s left of american airlines flight 191, as far as it got on its way to los angeles. they sift through the wreckage and look to the plane s two flight recorders for clues. within days of the crash, it began to zero in on a part called the pylon. it has a 13-inch crack they believe was caused by fatigue prior to the crash, which maintenance inspections had missed. what exactly is a pylon? aviation consultant john cox showed us at evergreen international, an airplane maintenance and storage facility outside tucson, arizona. you can see the pylon assembly, on which the engine rests on the pylon and it s attached to the wing.