Japan near Mid-air
LETTER FROM JAPANESE CONTROLLERS involvedin near mid-air over Japanin 2001
Themajor problemwhy this did not happen is that in Japan,the accidentinvestigation could not be completelyseparatedfrom the policeinvestigation.Forthis reasonthe accidentinvestigationwas delayed, and its resultscould not be usedin time to prevent further accidents. Lotsof peopleincludingATCcolleagues, membersof all transportationUnions,andairline crewssupportedusduringthose5 yearsuntil we finallyheardthe judgmentof "not guilty". We got many messages of supportfrom IFATCA and we stronglyfelt that we were supportedby quite a lot of people.It gaveus energyto moveforwardand fight in the court. This"not guilty" verdict is not only ours but alsofor all of thosewho supportedus.After the ruling, manyATCcolleaguescongratulated us.But the congratulationsare to all of you. Pleaseconveyour feelingsof "Thanks"and "congratulations"to all your colleagues. We thank you again for your continuous u concernand supportfrom the bottom of our ~ hearts. § Hideki Hachitaniand YasukoMomii .c
0..
uring the IFATCAconference in Kaohsiung,ltsuro Nakajo, general secretary of the Japanese controllers association read a letter of thanks for all the controllers worldwide who had supported them during their ordeal which lasted 5 years.At the time of writing and reading this, we were all still aware of the good news that on the 20th of March 2006, the Judge of the Tokyo district court had found the controllers not guilty We are HidekiHachitaniandYasukoMomii, both controllersat the TokyoAreacontrol Centre.We havebeenprosecutedfor the near mid-aircollisionof JAL907and JAL958that occurredon 31 January2001. LastMarch,after 14 daysof trial we were acquittedfrom all charges.Thisis a first in the historyof Japan,as a court recognizedthat it was an accidentconnectedwith a system ratherthan individuals. We feel great remorsefor a long time for the injuredpeoplein this accident.and as a consequence couldnot analyzethis objectively. However,with time,we graduallyrecognized that this accidentwas complexand causedby
D
THE CONTROLLER
manyfactors. Oneand half year after our case,a mid air collisionoccurredaboveUeberlingenin Germanyinvolvinga OHL8757 and a BashkirianTul 54. Bothcasesare relatedas they both involveTCASin a similarway. We think this collisionmight havebeen preventedif the causesthat led to our JAL accidenthad beenproperlyclarifiedat an earlierstage,and notified worldwide.
This was done on 24 March, in the euphoria of the moment. However during the Conference,we learned that the State Prosecutor decided to appeaI the first court decision. This means that we are back to square one, still a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the head of our colleagues, and will do so for some time. IFATCAis monitoring very closely the situation. The Tokyo ACC
17