A Boeing 737-800 operated by Japanese airline All Nippon Airlines on a domestic flight from Sapporo in Hokkaido province to Toyama was forced to make an emergency diversion after one of the cockpit windshields started to crack during the one-and-a-half-hour flight.
Although windshield cracks are not unheard of, the incident has attracted worldwide attention, with aviation safety currently under the spotlight due to recent events involving Japanese aircraft and the Boeing 737-9 variant.
ANA flight N1182 with just 59 passengers and 6 crew onboard departed from Sapporo Airport at around 11:00 am on Saturday and had climbed to a cruising altitude of around 33,000 feet when the two pilots noticed a crack developing in one of the cockpit windshields.
The crew decided to immediately return to Sapporo where the 14-year-old aircraft which was delivered new to ANA in 2009 landed safely and without incident around an hour after takeoff.
Upon inspection, it was discovered that the crack had developed in the outermost layer of the windshield. There are four layers of windshield and a spokesperson for the airline noted that the crack did not have any impact on the plane’s flight’s control or pressurisation.
The Next Gen Boeing 737-800 is one of the best-ever selling aircraft models and is not connected with recent safety concerns that have impacted Boeing’s 737 MAX line and, in particular, the 737-9 (Boeing’s shorthand way to describe the 737 MAX 9).
Japanese airline travellers are, however, still jittery following the January 2 accident involving a Japan Airlines-operated Airbus A350 and a much smaller Coast Guard turboprop plane.
Five of the six crew members onboard the Coast Guard aircraft were killed after the A350 collided with it as it landed at Tokyo Narita Airport in darkness, but miraculously, there were no serious injuries onboard the larger JAL aircraft.
