2024-01-03 08:49:34
A day after a Japan Airlines (JAL) passenger plane collided with a Coast Guard plane at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, the country’s transport authorities have begun investigating the accident that left five dead. The government agency Japan Transport Safety Board is examining the wreckage, the Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday. The cause of the collision and the subsequent fire of both machines was still unclear.
While all 379 people on board the Airbus A350 passenger plane were able to leave the blazing plane without life-threatening injuries, any help came too late for five people on board the Coast Guard plane. Only the pilot of the Bombardier DHC8-300 got out; according to the media, he suffered serious injuries. The flames on the JAL plane were brought under control more than eight hours after the collision.
According to Japanese media reports, the JAL aircraft received permission from the air traffic controller to land and carried out the landing maneuver accordingly. But when it was about to touch down, the Coast Guard plane appeared to already be on the runway. There may have been a misunderstanding between the air traffic controller and the pilot of the plane. The authorities will now investigate the communication between the two sides in detail.
The coast guard plane wanted to bring relief supplies for the survivors of the series of earthquakes to the severely affected Noto Peninsula. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida countered fears on Wednesday that the accident could hinder the rapid delivery of relief supplies to the earthquake region in the west of the country.
Debris, mudslides and torn-up roads continued to hamper the search for survivors there on Wednesday. According to the latest information, at least 65 people fell victim to the 7.6 magnitude quake on New Year’s Day. Since then, the region has been rocked by more than 150 aftershocks, which continued on Wednesday.
Numerous houses were destroyed in the towns of Wajima, Suzu and Noto on the Noto Peninsula. The full extent of the destruction has still not been recorded, Japanese media reported on Wednesday. Authorities in the region have information about several cases of people being buried alive or trapped under collapsed houses.
The National Weather Service warned of the possibility of further landslides as intermittent rainfall continued through Thursday. Some villages are said to still be cut off from the outside world. Japanese forces wanted to use helicopters to bring relief supplies to the cut-off areas. Kishida announced an increase of another 1,000 to the 1,000 soldiers deployed to the disaster area.
Meanwhile, airline JAL canceled more than 40 domestic flights to and from Haneda following its plane’s devastating collision with the Coast Guard plane on Wednesday. All Nippon Airways (ANA) also canceled dozens of flights. All runways at Japan’s busiest airport were temporarily closed on the day of the accident, but were able to be reopened except for the taxiway at the accident site.
According to a statement from Toulouse, the aircraft manufacturer Airbus expressed sympathy for everyone affected by the accident on the day of the accident. The A350-900 was therefore only two years old. The authorities will be provided with technical support in the investigation of the incident, it said.
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