Don Chan
May 3, 2005 at 3:56 pm

[Accident Report] Shizuoka Prefectural Police accident on 3 May 2005 in Japan

On 3 May 2005, about 16:30, a Shizuoka Prefectural Police Agusta A109 K2 chopper crashed and caught fire in Shimizu Ward, Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture.
Its crash site was in a residential area, about 500 m southeast of the Kusanagi train station of the JR Toukaidou Line.
It damaged the roof and stairs of a two-floors apartment building and crashed onto the road beside the apartment.
Its five crew members were killed. Pilot MORIKUNI Teruo (59), and four other police officers/technicians: SAITOU Shinichi (49), KOBAYASHI Teruyuki (47), MASUDA Shinji (38), and SUZUKI Minoru (35).
Its official callsign/nickname was “Fuji 1 Gou” (Fuji Number 1).
It was tasked with monitoring road traffic conditions on highways all over the prefecture, during the Golden Week holidays from Friday, 29 April, to Thursday, 5 May. It was scheduled to RTB at 16:00.

Its pre-flight check had no abnormality.
About 14:42, it took off from the prefectural police air base at Shizuhama JASDF Base in Ooigawachou, Shizuoka Prefecture. It flew to western Shizuoka Prefecture, including Iwata City.
About 15:25, Morikuni reported he was flying above Okabechou in central Shizuoka Prefecture.
About 16:10, he reported he was flying at 1,500 m above Numadu in eastern Shizuoka Prefecture, without problem.
About 16:25, he reported he was flying above Shimizu, and was ready to RTB and land.
Residents who phoned 110 (emergency number) claimed the chopper was flying southwest towards the JR Higashi Shizuoka (East Shizuoka) train station when it suddenly dived, hit the apartment building roof, and crashed onto the road. One witness claimed he heard its engines were sputtering. Other witnesses claimed its main rotor was stopped and it dived at about 30 degrees before it crashed.
The weather in Shizuoka City was clear, with south winds at 2-3 m.
No one on the ground was wounded/killed.

On 2 May, the same chopper flew for about 1.5 hours before noon, and 1.5 hours after noon, without problem.
Morikuni had 9,069 flight hours.
The chopper was bought in March 2001. It had crew capacity of 8, flight endurance of 2.5 hours, flight hours of about 1,327 hours, and service life of 20 years.

On 3 May, at 14:00, the above-mentioned five crew members, plus a co-pilot and a mechanic, took off from the same air base in another chopper called Fuji 2 Gou. But its oil-related caution light came on, so they RTB, changed to Fuji 1 Gou, and took off at 14:42.

The Toyama Prefectural Police also has one chopper of the same type, called “Tsurugi”.
Japanese police currently has or manages 95 choppers.

The Shizuoka Prefectural Police official homepage has a photo of its helicopter, with its serial number painted on its belly, in Japanese at
http://www.wbs.ne.jp/cmt/kenkei/zukan/norimono/norimono.htm
and in English at
http://www.wbs.ne.jp/cmt/kenkei/e-html/info-4.htm
but right now, I’m not certain this is the concerned chopper, as I don’t know how many choppers the Shizuoka Prefectural Police has?

OTOH, in a personal homepage about the Toyama Prefectural Police A109 K2 and its relatives in Japan, photos of the Fuji 1 Gou at
http://www.tsurugisawa.com/agusta/agusta-another.html#JA11PC
and at
http://chakkiri.com/aircraft_list/ja1000-.html
http://chakkiri.com/aircraft_list/ja11pc/index.html
http://www.246.ne.jp/~heli-ss/sp-ev-sizuhama-1.html
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/ikarashi/365/etc/20021019_shizuoka.html
http://www2.tbb.t-com.ne.jp/apal-ad/j_regi/j_regi_07.html#SIZUOKA
showed its serial number as JA11PC.

According to photos at
http://chakkiri.com/aircraft_list/police-heli.html
the current Fuji 2 Gou is an AS365N3, serial number JA22PC.
The previous, presumably retired Fuji 2 Gou was a Bell 222, serial number JA9552.

The articles also mentioned two other Japanese police chopper crashes:

In June 2002, a Niigata Prefectural Police chopper crashed in a forest near (the former) Kamikawamura (Kamikawa Village), and wounded its crew of three. They were looking for a suspect who vandalised automatic vending machines, when their chopper suddenly spinned/turned right and lost balance.

In November 1966, off Ehime Prefecture, an Oosaka Police chopper collided with an ANA (All Nippon Airlines) chopper, and both crashed into the sea. The crew of two on the police chopper and the crew of two on the ANA chopper were killed. Both choppers were looking for the victims of an ANA plane that crashed two days ago.