KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 17 — Bandar Elmina in Shah Alam was also the site of another horrific air crash 46 years ago.

On September 27, 1977, Japan Airlines (JAL) flight 715 from Tokyo via Hong Kong was descending for landing at the then Subang International Airport, when tragedy struck at the same area as today’s fatal private plane crash in Shah Alam.

At that time, the ill-fated JAL McDonnell Douglas aircraft crashed into the side of a hill while descending and burst into flames upon impact.

What was left of the plane landed in a rubber plantation then known as the Elmina Estate, the forebear to today’s Bandar Elmina township.

The aircraft was about 6km short of reaching the Subang International Airport, which was then Malaysia’s main international airport.

The crash killed 34 passengers, out of 69 passengers and 10 flight crew onboard. There were 43 survivors of the incident.

The incident was the second-deadliest aviation disaster in Malaysia. About two months later, the Malaysian Airline System (MAS) Flight 653 crash in Tanjung Kupang, Johor became the country’s deadliest aviation disaster, with 100 fatalities reported.

The JAL flight 715, with registration JA8051, had earlier departed from Haneda Airport in Tokyo and was on its way from Kai Tak International Airport in Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur (Subang) before flying to Changi International Airport in Singapore on that fateful day.

Two hours into the flight, the Subang International Airport’s air traffic control told flight 715 to start its approach and land on runway 15.

The flight crew started their approach, putting the landing gear down and extending the flaps. The aircraft descended below the minimum descent altitude of 230m, then at 91m, before crashing into the side of a hill.

Investigations into the crash revealed that the captain was descending below the minimum descent altitude without having the runway in sight and continuing the descent until the aircraft struck the hill about 6km short of the runway threshold.

A subsidiary contributory factor was insufficient monitoring of the aircraft’s flight path by the captain under the adverse weather conditions with several aircraft in the holding pattern awaiting their turn for approach