A Japan Airlines plane caught fire on a runway at Tokyo Haneda International Airport on Tuesday, according to images from Japanese public television NHK, which, like other local media, reported a collision with another plane.
Check out the images in the main video.
The airliner's 367 passengers and 12 crew members were evacuated, according to NHK. According to the Japanese news agency Kyodo, eight children were among the passengers.
However, according to NHK, five of the six people who were on board the other plane involved in the accident, a Japanese Coast Guard plane, are missing. The sixth occupant managed to get off the plane.
In images taken at 5:47 p.m. local time, we could see the Japan Airlines plane taxiing on the tarmac before a large explosion went off, leaving a trail of flames behind the plane as it came to a stop a little further away.
AFP
According to several local media, it was the airliner JAL 5016, an Airbus A50-900, which came from Shin-Chitose airport near Sapporo (northern Japan) and would have hit a guards plane on the Japanese coast.
“It is unclear whether a collision occurred or not. But what is certain is that our aircraft is involved,” a coast guard official at Tokyo Haneda airport told AFP.
According to Kyodo news agency, Japan Airlines said its plane hit another plane shortly after landing, adding that Japan's transport ministry was investigating the accident.
AFP
According to NHK, debris was also scattered on the runway and more than 70 fire engines were at the scene.
Tokyo-Haneda is one of the Japanese capital's two international airports and one of the busiest in the world.
Airplane accidents are extremely rare in Japan. The worst disaster occurred in 1985 when a Japan Airlines plane crashed between Tokyo and Osaka, killing 520 people, one of the world's worst aviation disasters.
Japan was also already reeling on Tuesday from the massive earthquake that struck a day earlier on the Noto Peninsula in the center of the country, killing at least 48 people, according to a new preliminary report from local authorities.