Japan Airlines files for bankruptcy

1970: Japan Airlines launches a Boeing 747 jumbo jet
Photograph: Sankei Archive/Getty Images

1999: A shareholder displays a shirt demanding that the media expose supposed wrongdoings by the airline prior to the company's annual shareholders meeting in Tokyo. In 1998, JAL's reputation was tarnished after revelations that JAL funnelled money to 'sokaiya' corporate racketeers, apparently to prevent them from disrupting shareholders meetings
Photograph: Katsumi Kasahara/AP

February 2002: Flight attendants of Asian airlines distribute leaflets to passersby in a joint campaign in Tokyo to revitalise their hard-hit business following the 11 September attacks
Photograph: Chiaki Tsukumo/AP

2003: JAL planes at the New Tokyo International Airport in Narita, Japan
Photograph: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP

2003: Ground staff help customers at the luggage check-in counter at Tokyo's Haneda airport. JAL Group posted a weak full year net profit and warned of deep losses people as cancelled flights due to Sars
Photograph: Yoshikatsu Tsuno/AFP

2004: JAL President Isao Kaneko and Japanese actress Akiko Yada try new seats during a promotion for better seating on aircraft. In March JAL announced it would slash its group workforce by nearly 8% in the next three years while downgrading its sales and profit forecasts
Photograph: Yoshikatsu Tsuno/AFP

2006: JAL workers wave at one of their planes preparing for takeoff at the newly opened Kobe airport
Photograph: Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP

January 2009: A worker checks an engine of a Japan Airlines Boeing 747-300 plane before a demonstration flight at Haneda Airport in Tokyo
Photograph: Itsuo Inouye/AP

May 2009: Passengers are evacuated from Japan Airlines Flight 61 to Tokyo after one of the plane's jet engines sucked up a cargo container at Los Angeles International Airport
Photograph: Calvin Nguyen/AFP

September 2009: Japan Airlines president Haruka Nishimatsu dressed in a 'happi coat', hands out leaflets to promote the company to commuters in Tokyo
Photograph: Jiji Press/AFP

January 2010: A JAL plane from New Chitose airport flies over Tokyo as it approaches Haneda international airport
Photograph: Issei Kato/Reuters

January 2010: A man watches the share price of Japan Airlines in front of a brokerage in Tokyo
Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

January 2010: A JAL passenger plane takes off at Tokyo International Airport
Photograph: Junko Kimura/Getty Images

January 2010: Passengers use a self-check-in machine at Haneda Airport in Tokyo
Photograph: Itsuo Inouye/AP

19 January 2010: Japan Airlines president Haruka Nishimatsu bows during a press conference in Tokyo, shortly after Japan's flagship carrier filed for bankruptcy in one of the nation's largest corporate failures. Nishimatsu resigned, bowing deeply as he apologised for the company's troubles
Photograph: Itsuo Inouye/AP