Oriental Air Bridge (ORC)

Is Oriental Air Bridge safe?

Yes, with caveats. Oriental Air Bridge, known as ORC, has had no fatal accident and has not written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary an aircraft in the 20 years we look at. But for an airline with six turboprops it has had a fair share of damage: three accidents since 2014, two of them on landing in gusty wind with the crew at the controls. In June 2024 the regulator also found that a mechanic had signed off work while still drunk. We score ORC 80, below ANA (87), whose regional arm ANA Wings flies Dash 8-400s on some of the same island routes.

For the people of Nagasaki's islands, ORC is a lifeline. It flies 48-seat ATR 42-600s from Nagasaki to Iki, Tsushima and Goto-Fukue, and 74-seat Dash 8-400s from Fukuoka to Goto-Fukue and Tsushima. It also flies longer routes from Fukuoka and Nagoya to Miyazaki, Komatsu and Akita. It sells its own tickets as OC flights, and ANA sells seats on many of them as codeshares.

The accident record

The Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) has investigated three ORC accidents in the 20-year window. Nobody was hurt in any of them.

• Nagasaki, February 2014: on a training flight, the trainee pilot pushed the nose down after a bounce in a strong crosswind, and the nose gear hit the runway at about 2 g, damaging the gear and the fuselage skin. The JTSB said the instructor did not correct the trainee in time. Only the two pilots were on board.
• Goto-Fukue, October 2020: OC93 from Fukuoka, a Dash 8-400 with 54 people on board, scraped its tail on landing. Turbulence cut the airspeed in the flare and the captain kept pulling the nose up until just before touchdown.
• Tsushima, July 2024: a black kite hit a propeller during the landing roll of OC79, knocking about 8 cm off a blade tip and denting the fuselage. The airline did not cause it.

Before that, in 1996, the airline (then Nagasaki Airways) lost an Islander light aircraft in snow on a mountain ridge; both people on board survived. On 11 September 2026 a bird hit an ATR 42-600 taking off from Iki and damaged an engine, which had to be replaced; ORC cancelled flights until 27 September while it flew one ATR. Damage limited to one engine does not make an accident under international rules, and the JTSB has opened no investigation.

The maintenance recommendations

This was the second time. ORC's own safety report records a business improvement recommendation over improper maintenance on 5 July 2019, after which it set up compliance and "assertion" committees so staff would speak up. On 28 June 2024 the Osaka Regional Civil Aviation Bureau issued a business improvement recommendation, one step below a formal order, and a separate warning to ORC's safety manager. The facts were stark. On 18 May 2024 a certifying mechanic, still feeling the drink from the night before, deliberately skipped his pre-work alcohol test and carried out a pre-flight check and a repair to the de-icing system. The repair was not done to the manual, and the required function check was missed. The aircraft flew 30 flights over five days before anyone noticed. A look back over the previous year found three more missing alcohol-test records.

The bureau told ORC to rebuild its safety management, including its alcohol checks. ORC's safety report for fiscal 2025 lists no new regulatory action, no alcohol-related report to the ministry, and 12 reportable safety troubles, two of them caused by contractors.

The fleet

Six turboprops. The two ATR 42-600s joined in 2023 and averaged 3.8 years in ORC's fiscal 2025 safety report. The four Dash 8-400s are older: ORC flies them from a pool of 24 registered as shared aircraft with ANA Wings, averaging 17.6 years, and ANA does their maintenance. The two named in JTSB reports were built in 2004 and 2011.

How to fly ORC more safely

• Keep a buffer day for island trips. Wind and fog cancel flights to Iki, Tsushima and Goto. Don't plan a tight connection to an international flight out of Fukuoka.
• Belt up for the approach. Island approaches are often bumpy and short. Stow loose items before descent, since turbulence in the last minute of a landing is exactly what caused the 2020 tail strikeTail strikeWhen the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during take-off or landing, usually because the nose was raised too far or too early.More in the glossary.

How we scored it

Japan's strong oversight (86) and a record with no deaths or written-off aircraft hold the score up. The accident record (86) loses points for three damage events in a small operation, and serious incidents (66) for two maintenance recommendations, in 2019 and 2024. The fleet (74) mixes two new ATRs with Dash 8s averaging over 17 years. The demanding island network (76) costs a few more points. Compare IBEX, a regional jet airline with no accident at all.