A Japan Airlines (JAL) passenger aircraft burst into flames on Runway 34R at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Tuesday after a runway incursion of a Japan Coast Guard plane.
The Airbus A350-900's 367 passengers and 12 crew members were all able to evacuate safely via an emergency slide. Reports suggest, at least 17 people sustained non-fatal injuries.
Television and some footage showed the Japan Airlines (JAL) airliner moving along the runway before a large eruption of orange flames and black smoke burst from beneath and behind it.
Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito confirmed that all 379 occupants of Japan Airlines flight JAL-516 got out safely before the plane was entirely engulfed in flames. The pilot of the coast guard plane also escaped, but five crewmembers died, Saito said.
The JAL plane registered as JA13XJ was landing on Haneda from New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido when the collision occurred with the coastguard Bombardier DHC-8 Dash 8 aircraft (JA772A).
The incident came just a day after a series of earthquakes rocked western Japan, killing almost 50 people in the Ishikawa prefecture, and Kyodo said the coast guard plane had been due to head to Niigata to deliver relief goods to residents affected by the disaster.
After the passenger plane came to a rest and evacuations, dozens of fire engines sprayed the fuselage but they failed to put out the flames coming out of windows near the wings and the blaze soon engulfed the entire aircraft.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida praised the deceased crew members on their way to help the victims of the quake.
"These were employees who had a high sense of mission and responsibility for the affected areas. It's very regrettable," he told reporters.
"I express my respect and gratitude to their sense of mission," Kishida said.
The five coastguard Bombardier crew members who died in the accident have been identified as Nobuyuki Tahara, 41, Yoshiki Ishida, 27, Wataru Tatewaki, 39, Makoto Uno, 47, and Shigeaki Kato, 56.
Aviation industry and flyers can take lessons from this remarkable passenger discipline and exhibition of professionalism of the Japan Airlines crew during the evacuation from JL Flight 516.
Japan has not suffered a serious civil aviation accident in the recent past. Its worst ever was on August 12, 1985, when a JAL jumbo jet flying from Tokyo to Osaka crashed in central Gunma region, killing 520 passengers and crew. The Boeing 747 operating the service had suffered a severe structural failure and decompression 12 minutes into the flight.
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