The Tokyo District Court on Monday acquitted two air traffic controllers charged with professional negligence in almost causing two Japan Airlines jumbo jets to collide in January 2001 over the Pacific Ocean off Shizuoka Prefecture.
Prosecutors had demanded a one-year prison term for 31-year-old Hideki Hachitani and a 1 1/2-year sentence for 37-year-old Yasuko Momii for mistaking the flight numbers of the two jets when issuing instructions. Both defendants had pleaded not guilty.
Presiding Judge Hisaharu Yasui reckoned the defendants could not have foreseen the impending accident and there was no causal relationship between the mistaken flight numbers and the mishap.