A team of transportation safety officials searched for a voice recorder from the badly burned fuselage of a Japan Airlines plane on Friday, seeking crucial information about what caused a collision with a small Coast Guard plane on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport.
Meanwhile, JAL also began using heavy machinery to remove some of the debris and store it in a hangar so the runway could be reopened.
Six experts from the Japan Transport Safety Board walked through the mangled wreckage of the Airbus A350-900 as it lay on the runway, searching for the voice data recorder.
JTSB experts have so far recovered both the flight and voice data recorders from the Coast Guard's Bombardier Dash-8 and a flight data recorder from the JAL aircraft to try to figure out what happened in the final minutes before Tuesday's fatal collision.
All 379 occupants of JAL Flight 516 were safely evacuated within 18 minutes of landing because the aircraft was engulfed in flames. The pilot of the Coast Guard aircraft also escaped, but the five other crew members were killed.
New details have also emerged from media footage at Haneda Airport. NHK television reported that footage from its surveillance camera at Haneda Airport showed the coast guard plane heading toward the runway and stopping there for about 40 seconds before the collision occurred.
In the footage, the Coast Guard plane can be seen entering the runway from runway C5, and moments later the passenger plane lands directly behind it and rams it, creating an orange fireball. The JAL plane, covered in flames and gray smoke, continues to race down the runway before coming to a stop.
Black smoke rises as clearance operations are carried out at the scene of a plane collision at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Friday, Jan. 5, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)
A transcript of recorded traffic control communications released Wednesday by the Department of Transportation showed that the air traffic controller ordered the Coast Guard aircraft to taxi to a holding position short of the runway, indicating that it was departure priority No. 1. The Coast Guard pilot repeats the instruction and then thanks him for the No. 1 seat. There was no further instruction from control allowing the Coast Guard to enter the runway.
The pilot told police investigators that his plane was hit just as he started the engines after receiving clearance to take off.
The small lights on the Coast Guard plane and its 40-second stop may have made it less visible to JAL pilots and air traffic control. NHK also said air traffic control officials in other operations may have missed a runway trespass warning system.
JTSB investigators planned to interview seven JAL flight attendants on Friday to obtain their statements, after conducting similar interviews with the three pilots and two other flight attendants the day before.
As an aircraft manufacturer, Airbus officials also participated in the investigation, a requirement of international aviation safety regulations, the board said.