The House of Representatives transport committee will summon the presidents of Japan Airlines Corp. and Skymark Airlines Co. to a hearing Tuesday to testify on maintenance errors and blunders found recently at the two carriers, panel sources said Thursday.
JAL President Toshiyuki Shinmachi, along with Haruka Nishimatsu, who is appointed as his successor, as well as Skymark President Shinichi Nishikubo will be called to testify during the four-hour session. The chiefs of the maintenance departments at the two airlines will also be summoned.
The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry has been investigating Skymark since March after it was found to have flown one of its jets past a repair deadline.
Flagship carrier JAL was reprimanded the same month for flying a passenger plane 10 days without conducting required inspections, and then was caught having conducted a lax inspection on it.
Shinmachi attended a session of the House of Councilors transport committee last April after the government issued an operational improvement order on it a month earlier over a series of irregularities, including a JAL International cargo jet using the wrong main-gear parts for more than eight years and a jetliner flying to New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido from Tokyo's Haneda airport with inoperable emergency slides.