A Japan Airlines plane on fire on the tarmac at Tokyo-Haneda International Airport on January 2, 2024, after a collision with a Japanese coast guard plane (JIJI PRESS/AFP/STR)
A Japan Airlines plane caught fire Tuesday at Tokyo-Haneda International Airport after a ground collision with a Japanese coast guard aircraft, killing five of the six occupants.
The 367 passengers and 12 crew members of the Japan Airlines JAL516 airliner were evacuated “safe and sound”, Japanese Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito confirmed to journalists.
On the other hand, only the captain was able to get out of the Japanese Coast Guard Bombardier Dash 8, the minister said. This survivor is said to be seriously injured, according to public television channel NHK.
In images taken at the airport at 5:47 p.m. local time (08:47 GMT), the Japan Airlines plane could be seen landing on the tarmac before a large explosion went off and left a trail of flames and smoke in the wake of the aircraft, which stopped a little further away.
This Airbus A350 arrived from Shin-Chitose airport, near Sapporo (northern Japan). Eight children were on board, according to the Japanese press agency Kyodo, and videos posted on X (formerly Twitter) showed passengers escaping the burning cabin by sliding down inflatable escape slides.
Emergency vehicles at the scene of the collision which caused the death of five people between a Japanese coast guard plane and a Japan Airlines (JAL) plane on the tarmac of Tokyo-Haneda airport on January 2, 2024 (AFP/Richard A. Brooks)
“Smoke started to fill the plane, and I said to myself ‘this could go very badly'” a passenger told the press at the airport.
“An announcement said the doors in the back and middle couldn’t be opened. So everyone exited through the front,” he added.
“It was hot inside the plane and I honestly thought I wouldn’t survive,” another survivor told NHK.
– Domestic flights canceled at Tokyo-Haneda –
Firefighters arrived quickly and in large numbers, but were unable to immediately control the fire which quickly consumed the entire airliner after the evacuation of all its occupants.
The Japanese Coast Guard aircraft was preparing to take off for the Ishikawa department (central Japan), hit on Monday by a devastating earthquake which left at least 48 dead, in order to deliver food and basic necessities. to the thousands of people affected on site, according to a coast guard official interviewed by AFP.
Japan Airlines plane on fire on the tarmac at Tokyo-Haneda International Airport on January 2, 2024, after a collision with a Japanese coast guard plane (AFP/Richard A. BROOKS)
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida paid tribute to the fallen coast guard. “These employees had a high sense of their mission and responsibility for the disaster areas, it is very regrettable,” he said, expressing his “respect” and “gratitude” towards them.
The reason for the collision is still unknown. “We are not yet able to explain the cause” of the accident, said Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito.
Tokyo-Haneda is one of the Japanese capital’s two international airports and one of the busiest in the world.
All domestic flights from Tokyo-Haneda (departures and arrivals) were canceled Tuesday evening, according to the airport website. However, most international flights were operated.
However, authorities planned to resume all flights as soon as possible due to the busy air traffic period after the New Year, according to a Transport Ministry official.
Accidents involving airliners are extremely rare in Japan. The most serious of these occurred in 1985, when a Japan Airlines plane crashed between Tokyo and Osaka, killing 520 people, one of the worst aviation disasters in the world.
© 2024 AFP
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