“I felt a bang, as if we had hit something and been thrown into the air the moment we landed,” a passenger on the Japan Airlines flight told Kyodo news agency. “I saw sparks outside the window and the cabin was full of smoke.”
A young Swedish passenger aboard the Japan Airlines plane reported something similar. In a few minutes the entire cabin would be filled with smoke. “We threw ourselves on the ground. Then the emergency doors opened and we ran in,” said the 17-year-old. “The smoke in the cabin smelled really bad. It was hell. We had no idea where to go, so we ran into the field. It was chaos.”
Collision shortly after landing
The collision occurred shortly before 6pm (local time) on Tuesday at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Immediately after landing, the Japan Airlines (JAL) passenger plane collided with a Japanese Coast Guard plane carrying relief supplies to survivors of the Noto Peninsula earthquake disaster.
Tokyo: Plane caught fire
A passenger plane caught fire while landing at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. According to Japan Airlines, all 379 people on board managed to exit the plane. The plane took off from Hokkaido, in northern Japan.
Television footage showed the Airbus passing the runway when flames and black smoke suddenly erupted. Videos on social media showed passengers exiting the plane via emergency slides while the rear of the plane was already on fire.
“I didn’t think I would survive this.”
A woman reported that it was dark in the passenger cabin while the fire raged outside. “It got hot on the plane and, to be honest, I didn’t think I would survive.”
Portal/Issei Kato The Japan Airlines plane completely caught fire
“Smoke was billowing through the plane and I thought, 'This looks bad,'” another passenger said. “There was an announcement that the rear and center doors could not be used, so everyone is in the front.”
Five killed on Coast Guard plane
Dozens of firefighters were on duty. The Japan Airlines Airbus A350 burned completely. The Coast Guard aircraft, a Bombardier DHC-8, also caught fire. Five of the six occupants of the Coast Guard plane were initially reported missing, but authorities later announced their deaths.
The pilot managed to arrive safely and informed authorities. There were 367 passengers and twelve crew on the Japan Airlines Airbus. According to authorities, 17 people on board were injured.
Investigation into the cause of the collision
How the collision occurred remains unclear, Japanese Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito said. Investigative authorities hope to discover more by analyzing radio traffic between the crews of the two machines and the tower.
Haneda Airport is one of two international airports in the Japanese capital and is one of the airports with the largest number of passengers in the world. Following the accident, Haneda's domestic flights were canceled, but most international takeoffs and landings went as planned.