"I was taxi-ing out for departure from Narita to Fukuoka, with a full load of passengers, after push back when I noticed something was wrong with the nosewheel steering - well that's what I thought the problem was.
The plane wanted to move across to the right side of the taxiway, and I had to use the tiller to try to bring it back, then it wanted to move quickly over to the left side, so I decided to stop, and return to the gate to get the steering checked out.
That was when ATC announced "Jishin, jishin! All aircraft stop in present position. Earthquake."
I stopped and set the parking brake, then the whole aircraft began to roll and shake so forcefully. It was lucky everybody was seated with their seatbelts fastened, it was like an amusement park ride.
The leading called up and asked what was going on, why had we stopped, and were we going to evacuate?
I made a p.a. and instructed everyone to remain seated.
The violent thumping and shaking continued for 4 minutes, and although I thought about shutting the engines down, it was just too rough. 
When it finally stopped, I told the first officer to start the APU and to call the company to see if we could return to our spot.
No-one answered.
We called on the company radio many times, but no replies, so we called up ground, and requested a return to our spot.
"Negative, remain in your present position, " SMC said, "all staff have evacuated the terminal and many are on the apron. If you taxi back, you may ingest them. Hold position."
We opened the cockpit windows and looked back towards the terminal, and sure enough there were hundreds of people standing outside, away from the buildings, in case they collapsed.
"Narita airport is now closed to all traffic. All departure clearances are cancelled indefinitely," ground control broadcast.
In Japan, it's standard procedure to close an airport when an earthquake occurs. Usually it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to re-open, after they have carried out a runway and taxiway inspection, to make sure there are no cracks. 
Well we sat there for 4 hours. Four hours with the APU providing the electrical power, and the heated air conditioning.
By way of the public address system, I let my passengers know as much as we knew from the updates our company transmitted. Because of the circumstances, I advised my captive audience that it was okay to use their cell phones.
Because my English is not so good, I tuned one of the ADFs to an English-speaking radio station and held the hand mike to the speaker so that the non-Japanese passengers could understand the true situation.
The flight was cancelled, and we got sent to the Marroad Hotel just near the end of runway 16L. It looks like it might have got a few new cracks too.
It wasn't the nose wheel steering after all!"
Image Credit:Major Nelson
| report via pirep.org |
