Japan's transport ministry carried out an inspection at a Japan Airlines Co. office at Haneda airport in Tokyo on Friday following a series of incidents involving the company's aircraft, including one the previous day in which two jets touched wings while taxiing, officials said.
Four officials of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism entered the office, located next to an aircraft maintenance facility, to conduct an extraordinary audit involving hearings to assess the airline's safety procedures and processes.
The ministry will instruct JAL to rectify any problems if current arrangements are found to be lacking, they said.
"We take the (series of incidents at JAL) seriously and are making all-out efforts to recover trust in air safety," transport minister Tetsuo Saito told a press conference.
A spokesperson for JAL echoed the minister, saying the airline is taking the audit seriously and vowing to "rebuild trust" under the ministry's guidance.
On Thursday, a JAL aircraft that was preparing for departure touched wings with another of the company's planes that was taxiing to a gate. The tips of both planes' wings were damaged.
The incident followed another on May 10 at Fukuoka airport in southwestern Japan, where a pilot of a JAL aircraft failed to properly repeat the instruction of an air traffic controller and moved beyond a stop line leading to a runway without the control tower's clearance.
A JAL aircraft entered the wrong runway at a U.S. airport in November, and another crossed a stop line in February, also in the United States.
The ministry said the Fukuoka airport case will be addressed at a panel formed to discuss a fatal collision between a JAL passenger aircraft and a Japan Coast Guard aircraft at Haneda in January as it considers ways to prevent a repeat of the accident.
