| Date: | Tuesday 23 April 2019 |
| Time: | 07:48 |
| Type: | Boeing 777-246 |
| Owner/operator: | Japan Airlines (JAL) |
| Registration: | JA707J |
| MSN: | 32894/475 |
| Year of manufacture: | 2004 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: |
| Other fatalities: | 0 |
| Aircraft damage: | None |
| Category: | Serious incident |
| Location: | near GRASO waypoint -
Thailand
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Passenger - Scheduled |
| Departure airport: | Tokyo-Haneda Airport (HND/RJTT) |
| Destination airport: | Bangkok-Suvarnabhumi International Airport (BKK/VTBS) |
| Investigating agency: | AAIC Thailand |
| Confidence Rating: | Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
Narrative:Japan Airlines flight JL31, a Boeing 777-246 (JA707) and Thai Airways flight TG623, an Airbus A380 (HS-TUB) suffered a serious airprox incident.
JL31 was travelling along the flight route A1 UBL W1 GRASO Y13, from the east at FL400. However, due to heavy air traffic conditions, the air traffic controller (ATC) at the Bangkok Area Control Centre (BACC Sector 8) instructed flight
JL31 to orbit right, while the Airbus A380-800 aircraft flight TG623 was travelling along flight route A1 UBL W1 GRASO Y13 RUKSA DCT. While maintaining at FL400 on route A1, BACC Sector 8 instructed flight TG623 to fly in a direction of 270 degrees, which was the approaching flight path for flight JL31, resulting in a loss of separation between the two flights.
Vertical separation reduced to 500 ft. Horizontal separation reduced to 2.4 NM.
Causes
This serious incident occurred as a result of the following factors:
1 Air traffic controllers failed to monitor the movements of the aircraft under their control at all times, preventing them from correcting the situation in time.
2 Air traffic controllers used non-standard phraseology to issue instructions that lacked critical traffic information to warn both flights to act faster.
Accident investigation:
|
|
| | |
| Investigating agency: | AAIC Thailand |
| Report number: | 27/2019 |
| Status: | Investigation completed |
| Duration: | 6 years and 2 months |
| Download report: | Final report
|
|
Sources:
https://bea.aero/en/investigation-reports/notified-events/detail/serious-incident-to-the-airbus-a380-registered-hs-tub-and-operated-by-thai-airways-and-to-the-boeing-777-registered-ja707j-and-operated-by-japan-airlines-on-23-04-2019-en-route-investigation-led-by-aaic---thailand/ Location
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
| 13-Apr-2023 17:01 |
harro |
Added |
| 16-Dec-2024 08:50 |
ASN |
Updated [Time, Narrative, Accident report, ] |
| 26-Jun-2025 12:07 |
ASN |
Updated [Location, Narrative, Category, Accident report, ] |
The Aviation Safety Network is an exclusive service provided by:

CONNECT WITH US:
©2025 Flight Safety Foundation