Developing a Model to Explain Modifications to Public Transportation Accident Memorials

With the notable exception of modifications to memorials related to the Titanic, public transportation accidents have remained largely ignored by the academic community. This article fills a gap in the literature by developing a model to explain modifications which occur many years after the event. Such modifications, beyond the financial means of most individual families, are unexpected given that the lack of need to reinterpret the event, as often occurs with modifications to memorials which may have a wider social significance. The article develops a model using existing literature on transportation accident memorials, memory studies and death studies, pointing to the need for three factors: local approval, co-ordination (of both people and funds), and a trigger. In relation to the trigger, the model finds that this relates to the continuation of the bereavement process as well as potentially issues relating to ‘dark tourism’. Having developed the model, it is tested against the case study of a modification made to a memorial, Irei-no-Sono, for the world’s largest single-plane crash, JAL flight JL123. The article finds, in addition to the model working for this case, there is a need for bereavement theory to be better used within studies on memorialisation.

See also my books Dealing With Disaster in Japan: Responses to the Flight JL123 Crash and Osutaka: A Chronicle of Loss in the World’s Largest Single Plane Crash

‘Developing a Model to Explain Modifications to Public Transportation Accident Memorials’, Mortality (2019). DOI 10.1080/13576275.2019.1702009.

Links to posts about memorials and memorialisation:

• American Airlines Flight AA587 Memorial
• The ANA Flight NH58 Memorial
• The BOAC Flight 911 Memorial
• The China Airlines Flight CI140 Memorial
• The Concorde Flight AF4590 Crash and Reflecting on a Research Trip to Paris: The Concorde Memorials
• The Daigo Fukuryū Maru Exhibition Hall
• The Fukuchiyama Line Derailment Memorial and Revisiting The Fukuchiyama Line Derailment Memorial
• The Hachikō Line Train Collision Memorial
• The Hachikō Line derailment Memorial
• The Herald of Free Enterprise Accident
• The Hidagawa Bus Crash Memorial
• The Higashi-Ikebukuro Runaway Car Accident Memorial
• The Hillsborough Disaster
• The Flight JL123 Crash (1): Osutaka-no-One
• The Flight JL123 Crash (2): Irei-no-Sono
• The Flight JL123 Crash (3): JAL Safety Promotion Center
• The JAL flight JL350 Memorial
• Jōban Line derailment and collision Memorial
• Kan’Etsu Bus Crash Memorial
• Karuizawa Ski Bus Crash Memorial
• The Ladbroke Grove Train Crash
• Nagasaki Hypocentre
• The Naka-Meguro Train Crash Memorial
• Shigaraki Kōgen Train Crash Memorial
• The Tenerife Airport Disaster Memorial
• Remembering 9/11
• Remembering MH370
• Remembering RMS Titanic
• Remembering the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and Remembering
• Remembering the Great Hanshin Earthquake
• The Tōya-Maru sinking
• TWA flight TWA800 memorial

Also see the following posts, which although primarily relating to my study Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different? also contain discussion about memorialisation:

• Crash: The Crash of Flight 401
• Crash Landing: The Rescue of Flight 232
• Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac

Also see the following posts that deal with memorialisation:

• 3/11, Airports and Airlines
• Remembering MH370
• Remembering the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and Remembering
• Remembering the Great Hanshin Earthquake

UPDATE (9 May 2023): Having listened to a recent episode of the Take To The Sky podcast, I am aware that one of the accidents included in my study, the 1960s New York Mid-Air Collision, has also seen a modification to its memorialisation. This modification took place in 2020, after the publication of my article.