2024-01-03 05:44:00
Japan Airlines plane fire at Tokyo Haneda airport
Japanese investigators on Wednesday analyzed the collision at Tokyo’s Haneda airport between a coast guard plane and a passenger plane that, according to executives from the airline responsible, had been cleared to land.
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Five people died on the coast guard aircraft, while the 379 passengers and crew of the Japan Airlines (JAL) Airbus managed to be evacuated before it was consumed by flames on Tuesday night.
The captain of the coast guard plane, which was carrying aid to the earthquake-hit area of Japan, was the only survivor, but suffered serious injuries.
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Images on Tuesday showed a fireball and thick black smoke coming from under the commercial plane shortly after landing and braking on its nose, following a failure in its front landing gear.
Japan will investigate the collision of two planes in Tokyo (REUTERS)
Passengers had to go down on inflatable slides while flames came out of the back of the plane, seen in a video posted on the social network X.
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“As soon as we landed there was an explosion and I noticed a flare emerging from the right side,” a passenger told the NHK network.
“I needed to protect my daughter, that’s all I had in mind,” he added.
Government authorities promised to investigate the incident. Japan has not suffered a serious aviation accident in decades.
JAL officials said at a news conference Tuesday night that the plane had received permission to land from air traffic control. “We understand that it had been given,” they indicated.
But JAL and the government declined to comment directly on the exchanges between the flight controllers and the two planes because they were under investigation.
The plane came from New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido and had landed a few minutes before the collision.
In a recording from the control tower, apparently taken shortly before the collision and available on a site that broadcasts live air traffic signals, a voice can be heard telling the JAL plane: “Continue approach.”
Dozens of flights were cancelled, but other local airlines operated normally at Haneda, one of the world’s busiest airports.
Airbus, maker of the JAL plane, said it would send a team of specialists to support the investigation.
The airline Japan Airlines said that its ship had permission to land (REUTERS/Issei Kato)
The aircraft was coming from the airport serving Sapporo, on the northern island of Hokkaido.
For its part, the coast guard plane was preparing to fly to Ishikawa prefecture to deliver supplies after the earthquake that left 62 dead on Monday.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida praised the crew members who died when they were going to help the victims of the 7.5 magnitude earthquake.
“They were employees with a high sense of duty and responsibility to the affected areas,” Kishida declared Tuesday.
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