Plane nearly hit Tokyo Tower

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041018/80/f4r1q.html


TOKYO (Reuters) - A Thai charter plane veered off course while approaching a Tokyo airport last month, almost hitting the Tokyo Tower, a well-known landmark in the centre of the Japanese capital, a newspaper says.


The Orient Thai charter jumbo jet came within 200 metres of striking the tower, a 333-metre high copy of the Eiffel Tower, when it veered to the north during the final stages of its approach to Haneda airport just after midnight on September 19, the Mainichi Shimbun said on Monday.


There were no passengers on the plane, a Boeing 747-200 that was to depart for the Thai resort island of Phuket, a popular destination for Japanese travellers, after picking up passengers at Haneda.


Orient Thai airlines said the plane's captain had failed to explain to his crew the content of a manual on landing at Haneda, the Mainichi said. The captain is to be suspended, the paper reported the company as saying.


"The plane appears to have come near Tokyo Tower, but we don't know exactly how low it was flying at that point," a Transport Ministry official said.


"This has never happened before, and we would like to know the reason," he added.