2024-01-02 13:20:21
Five people aboard a Japan Coast Guard aircraft died Tuesday following a collision with an airliner on the tarmac at Tokyo Haneda International Airport. The airliner, belonging to the Japan Airlines company, caught fire following the crash, according to images broadcast by Japanese public television NHK, but its 379 passengers and 12 crew members were able to be evacuated.
“As for the coast guard plane, we were informed that the captain managed to abandon the aircraft and the death of five people was confirmed,” announced Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito.
LOOK: Videos show the moment in which the accident of the plane that crashed at the Tokyo airport began
“At the moment we cannot explain the cause” of the accident, Saito added.
In images taken at 5:47 p.m. local time (08:47 GMT), the Japan Airlines plane might be seen taxiing along the runway before a large explosion left a trail of flames behind the aircraft, which stopped a little further ahead.
A video posted on the social network X showed people sliding down an emergency slide of the passenger plane, while flames consumed the rear of the aircraft.
Despite the intervention of firefighters who sprayed the fuselage, the flames spread throughout the aircraft following the evacuation of the passengers.
Domestic flights canceled
Japan Airlines stated that its aircraft had collided with the other shortly following landing.
The JAL 5016 passenger plane, an Airbus A50-900, arrived from Shin-Chitose airport, near Sapporo, in northern Japan.
Among the passengers on the airliner were eight children, the Japanese news agency Kyodo reported.
“Smoke started filling the plane and I thought, ‘This might end badly,’” one passenger told reporters at the airport.
“We heard an announcement that the back and middle doors might not be opened. So everyone disembarked at the front,” he added.
A passenger said that as the fire spread it became increasingly difficult to see inside the plane.
“It was very hot inside the plane and, to be honest, I thought I wouldn’t survive,” she told NHK.
A fire truck next to a Japan Airlines (JAL) passenger plane on the runway at Tokyo International Airport in Haneda on January 2, 2024. (Photo by Richard A. BROOKS / AFP).
The coast guard plane was preparing to fly to Ishikawa prefecture to deliver supplies following Monday’s devastating earthquake, which killed at least 48 people.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida paid tribute to the deceased coast guard. “These employees had a high sense of mission and responsibility in the disaster areas, and this is very regrettable,” he said, expressing his “respect” and “gratitude.”
All domestic flights from Tokyo Haneda were cancelled, according to the airport’s website, but most international flights were maintained.
Tokyo Haneda is one of the two international airports in the Japanese capital and one of the busiest in the world.
Accidents involving passenger planes are extremely rare in Japan.
The most serious occurred in 1985, when a Japan Airlines plane crashed between Tokyo and Osaka, killing 520 people, in one of the worst air disasters in the world.
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