Tragedy generally hits hardest close to home, where the places and locations in question can trigger grief and trauma long after the initial event has slipped queasily into the past. Which might explain why the collective British memory does not easily recall the deadliest plane crash of all time: a catastrophe that took place more than 8,000 miles away, on the other side of the planet, but claimed 520 lives. It did so an exact 40 years ago today, on August 12 1985, on a wild mountainside, 60 miles north-west of Tokyo.

The fate of Flight 123 is certainly not forgotten in Japan, where the scarring is still visible (there will be commemorations at the crash site today, as there are every year). True, its loss of life did not match the 583 victims of the Tenerife Air Disaster of March 27 1

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