Capt. Yutaka Ishimota and an airline official point at the cockpit computers on the instrumental panel of a Japan Air System jetliner during a Y2K test flight VIDEO CNNfn's Lorraine Hahn reports on the Y2K readiness of JAL. Windows Media 28K 80K SEE ALSO CNN Special Sections: Countdown to 2000 Looking at the Y2K Bug Celebrate the Century Related sites and stories

September 16, 1999
Web posted at: 11:37 a.m. EDT (1537 GMT)

HONG KONG (CNN) - Journalists, politicians and Japanese airline industry executives climbed aboard a flight into the 21st century recently, for the first Japanese in-flight test of Y2K-readiness.

A Japan Airlines jet and the airport control tower set their computer systems to January 1, 2000 to simulate the rollover. According to the president of JAL, all went smoothly, and Japan's Transport Ministry has declared the nation's airline system Y2K-ready.

Because computers read dates by their last two digits, officials worldwide are working to ensure that systems don't malfunction by interpreting the "00" of 2000 as "1900."