ANA 737-800 Shuts Down Engine After Naha Departure, All 158 Evacuated by Slide

Japan’s transport safety authorities have opened a serious-incident investigation into an All Nippon Airways Boeing 737-800 that shut down an engine soon after departure from Naha and landed back with 158 people on board, all of whom left by emergency slide.

The flight

ANA flight NH1502 left Naha on Okinawa shortly before 9 pm local time on 23 September 2026, bound for Saga on Kyushu. The aircraft, registered JA86AN, carried 152 passengers, including four infants, and six crew, according to the Gulf News and The Star reports based on Japanese press coverage.

About 20 minutes into the flight, the crew saw heavy vibration and an unusually high oil temperature on the right engine. AeroInside says the climb was stopped at FL220 and the engine, a CFM56 variant, was shut down. The pilots asked air traffic control for priority and returned to Naha. Gulf News says the flight was operated by ANA Wings, the group’s regional subsidiary, on behalf of ANA. Reports put the landing on runway 36R, roughly an hour after departure.

The aircraft landed at around 10 pm and stopped on a taxiway, where everyone evacuated using the slides. Three passengers suffered minor scrapes and did not need ambulance treatment, the reports say. Nippon.com-sourced coverage carried by The Star states there was no smoke or fire.

What passengers described

One passenger from Fukuoka told the media they heard a loud boom in the air. Another, a man in his 30s, said he had worried the aircraft might crash. The reports do not link the noise to any specific engine component, and ANA has not published a technical explanation.

ANA apologised for the concern and inconvenience caused to the passengers and others affected. Passengers were rebooked, with a flight to Fukuoka the next morning, according to Gulf News.

JTSB investigation

The Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) classified the event as a serious incident and assigned three investigators. A serious incident is an event in which an accident nearly occurred. Gulf News reports that the board is examining the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.

AeroInside says the aircraft stayed in Okinawa, grounded, eight hours after the landing.

Why the type matters

The 737-800 is powered by engines from the CFM56 family, among the most numerous powerplants in airline service, and in-flight shutdowns are rare relative to the number of flights flown. A single occurrence says little about fleet-wide risk, and the board has not suggested a wider issue. Vibration paired with a high oil temperature is a combination that crews are trained to treat seriously, and the reported handling, an engine-out return with a priority landing, is consistent with that training.

The JTSB has not said when it expects to publish findings. Until it does, the cause remains undetermined.