As firefighters and rescue crews work on the bottom following an enormous airplane fireplace at Tokyo’s Haneda airport in Japan, investigators behind the scenes will attempt to piece collectively the way it occurred.
Captured in dramatic footage from the scene, a Japan Airlines plane will be seen bursting into flames and shifting alongside the runway in a burning inferno following a collision with a coast guard airplane.
Tokyo airplane crash – dwell updates
Japan has already been hit by tragedy following an earthquake on New Year’s Day, with dozens lifeless and warnings of aftershocks.
Haneda is among the busiest airports in Japan, and many individuals journey over the New Year vacation. As particulars from the scene proceed to emerge, right here is every part we all know concerning the airplane collision thus far.
Which planes have been concerned?
The home Japan Airlines Flight 516, an Airbus A350, had flown out of Shin Chitose airport within the northern island of Hokkaido, right down to Tokyo’s Haneda airport on the primary island of Honshu. It was carrying 379 individuals, together with crew.
The collision additionally concerned the coastguard plane MA722, a De Havilland Canada DHC-8-315Q MPA – often known as a Bombardier Dash-8 – which had six individuals together with the pilot on board.
It had been making ready to fly to the port metropolis of Niigata to ship support to these affected by the earthquake on the time of the collision, which happened at 5.47pm native time (8.47am within the UK).
Pilot and aviation advisor Tim Atkinson says the Bombardier Dash-8 is usually a short-haul airliner with about 50 to 80 seats. They are “not anything like the size of the A350s” however are “sizeable enough to have a significant volume of fuel on board”, he advised Sky News.
The passenger airplane both collided with the coastguard plane on the runway or taxiway after it touched down, Japan Airlines reportedly advised the Kyodo information company.
Passengers and crew
All 367 passengers and 12 crew on board the passenger flight have been evacuated safely, Japan Airlines mentioned.
The passengers included eight youngsters, Kyodo reported.
“We have just witnessed a miracle,” former industrial pilot Roger Whitefield advised Sky News, as footage from the scene performed out. “The way they got all those passengers off that aeroplane is almost beyond belief.”
While the coastguard airplane pilot managed to evacuate, the 5 different crew members have been killed, public broadcaster NHK reported.
What precipitated the collision?
It is simply too early to say at this stage precisely why the passenger airplane hit the smaller plane because it landed.
Mr Atkinson, who can also be an air accident investigator, mentioned a busy airport within the night is a “very visually challenging environment” for everybody concerned – from air visitors controllers to pilots and automobile drivers – with “an awful lot of lights of various colours, some of which are flashing”.
He mentioned: “As one approaches a runway at night, it’s often very difficult to perceive those little signs of, for example, a relatively small aircraft.”
Accident investigators will likely be trying into why the 2 plane have been in the identical location concurrently and whether or not they have been each the place they need to have been, Mr Atkinson mentioned.
Flight Radar 24, which tracks flights internationally, provided extra particulars on the collision, saying the coastguard airplane was not outfitted with a contemporary ADS-B transponder.
ADS-B transponders are used to transmit extremely correct details about an plane’s place to floor controllers and on to different plane, and are extra correct than utilizing standard radar surveillance.
What does footage present?
Local TV video confirmed a big eruption of fireside and smoke from the aspect of the Japan Airlines airplane because it taxied on a runway.
The space across the wing then caught fireplace, and pictures an hour later confirmed the airplane totally engulfed in flames.
As firefighters battled to regulate the blaze, the Japan Airlines plane appeared to interrupt in two.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has mentioned it’s investigating the collision.
What have survivors mentioned?
One passenger posted footage from contained in the Japan Airlines plane because it careered down the runway. The clip then confirmed individuals being evacuated down a slide.
Some passengers have additionally spoken out following their ordeal.
Swede Anton Deibe, 17, advised Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that the “entire cabin was filled with smoke within a few minutes”.
He mentioned: “We threw ourselves down on the floor. Then the emergency doors were opened and we threw ourselves at them.
“The smoke within the cabin stung like hell. It was a hell. We don’t know the place we’re going so we simply run out into the sector. It was chaos.”
Mr Deibe mentioned he was touring together with his dad and mom and sister.
“I felt a boom like we had hit something and jerked upward the moment we landed,” one other passenger advised Kyodo. “I saw sparks outside the window and the cabin filled with gas and smoke.”
Source: information.sky.com”