JA189 was a Galactic Empire TIE fighter pilot during the Galactic Civil War. Following the Battle of Hoth, JA189, along with three other pilots, were dispatched into the Hoth asteroid belt in pursuit of the Millennium Falcon. Although Lieutenant Commander Ciena Ree provided support to the four pilots from the Executor-class Star Dreadnought Executor, all four TIE/ln space superiority starfighters met their end in crashes within the asteroid field while chasing the Falcon. JA189 was the second of these pilots to crash.
During the Galactic Civil War, JA189 was the designation given to a human TIE fighter pilot serving in the Imperial Navy of the Galactic Empire, fighting against the Alliance to Restore the Republic. JA189 was stationed aboard an Imperial-class Star Destroyer that journeyed to the Hoth system as part of an attack on the Rebel Base situated on the planet Hoth. Despite the Empire's victory over the Alliance on the planet's surface, many Rebels escaped Hoth in transports, shielded from the Imperial fleet by an ion cannon. Following the battle, Darth Vader, the Sith Lord, ordered at least three of the six Imperial-class Star Destroyers present to pursue and capture a specific Rebel vessel: the YT-1300 light freighter known as the Millennium Falcon.
The Falcon attempted to evade the Imperials by entering an asteroid belt within the Hoth system, hoping to find refuge there. Since the Star Destroyers couldn't navigate the belt, JA189 and three other TIE pilots were launched from one of the Destroyers in TIE/ln space superiority starfighters to give chase, an act considered akin to suicide due to the unshielded nature of their craft in such a belt. Lieutenant Commander Ciena Ree offered supplementary navigational support to the four pilots from the bridge of the Executor-class Star Dreadnought Executor, Vader's personal flagship. Despite her assistance, CR978's TIE collided with an asteroid and was destroyed. Shortly after, Ree warned that JA189's computer was malfunctioning, but her warning came too late: a small asteroid struck JA189's TIE, causing it to spin out of control and explode, killing the pilot. The remaining two pilots, OL701 and NA811, soon met similar fates, and the Falcon ultimately escaped the Imperials. Ree was deeply saddened by the loss of the four pilots, but Admiral Firmus Piett, the commanding officer of the Executor, commended her for her efforts in assisting them. Piett believed the pilots were doomed from the start and that Ree had managed to prolong their survival.
The TIE fighter piloted by JA189 initially appeared in the original release of Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, though the pilot remained unseen in the film. JA189 was identified and heard for the first time in the novel Lost Stars, penned by Claudia Gray and published in 2015. In the non-canon video game LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga released in 2022, JA189's TIE fighter is featured in the mission "Never Tell Me the Odds." In this mission, it pursues the Falcon as depicted in the film, but the player has the option to shoot it down within the asteroid field instead of it colliding with an asteroid.