Pilot in Kyushu Near-Miss Incident Misunderstood Control Tower Instructions

A small plane involved in a near-miss incident with a Japan Airlines Co. jet in southern Kyushu on Saturday misunderstood landing permission given by a traffic controller, the transport ministry said Monday.

The controller instructed the JAL jet to land first and the small plane to follow, but the pilot of the small plane apparently mistook another plane for the JAL jet and tried to land before the latter, according to the ministry.

The incident involved a JAL Boeing 767 and a BN2B Islander operated by New Japan Aviation Co. about 5 km southeast of Kagoshima airport. Nobody was injured in the incident.

When the Boeing 767, which had departed Tokyo's Haneda airport with 250 passengers and crew members aboard, had descended to an altitude of about 300 meters, the small plane approached from the left, heading toward the same runway as the JAL jet.

Officials of both JAL and NJA said Sunday that they had obtained permission to land.

Recognizing the case as being a "serious incident" that could have led to an accident, the Japan Transport Safety Board sent three investigators to the airport in Kirishima, Kagoshima Prefecture, on Monday.

They interviewed air traffic controllers at the airport and checked their radio communications with pilots.