All 379 passengers and crew on a Japan Airlines plane have made a miraculous escape after the jet hit another aircraft when landing at Haneda airport in Tokyo and hurtled down the runway in flames.
The passenger jet which collided with a coast guard plane had been given permission to land, Japan Airlines executives have said, as police reportedly prepared to investigate whether the crash had involved professional negligence.
Five people on the coast guard aircraft died, but all 379 passengers and crew escaped to safety down emergency slides minutes before the Japan Airlines Airbus was engulfed in flames late Tuesday. Their safe escape has been hailed as a miracle.
Authorities have begun inspecting the charred wreckage and runway for clues. The burned-out husk of the airliner bore witness to just how close the plane came to disaster.
The captain of the coast guard plane – which had been carrying aid to the New Year’s Day earthquake zone – was its lone survivor but suffered serious injuries. Five passengers on the plane died.
Footage on Tuesday showed a ball of fire erupting and thick black smoke from underneath the airliner shortly after landing and coming to a halt on its nose after its front landing gear failed.
Passengers could be seen sliding down inflatable slides as flames shot out from the rear of the aircraft in video posted to social media platform X.
As the plane was evacuated, dozens of fire engines tried to douse the flames but the entire plane was soon engulfed and it took eight hours to finally extinguish the blaze.
“As soon as we landed, there was a ‘bang’. And I noticed a blaze rising from the right side,” a female passenger on board told broadcaster NHK.
“It was getting hot inside the plane, and I thought, to be honest, I would not survive.”
“I thought we landed normally. But then I realised I was smelling smoke. I looked outside and it was already burning,” a woman with a small child told NHK.
“I needed to protect my daughter. That was only thing in my mind.”
Government officials pledged to investigate how the incident happened in a country that had not seen a serious commercial aviation accident for decades.
Local media reports said that police would conduct an investigation into whether possible professional negligence led to deaths and injuries. A police spokesperson said a special investigation unit had set up at the airport, but declined to comment on whether they were looking into possible professional negligence.
Asked at a briefing late Tuesday night whether the Japan Airlines flight had secured landing permission from air traffic control, officials at the major carrier said: “Our understanding is that it was given.”
But JAL and the land ministry declined to comment directly on exchanges between flight controllers and the two planes, citing the ongoing investigation.
In a recording from Haneda’s control tower apparently taken in the moments before the collision, available on a site that broadcasts live air traffic signals, a voice can be heard advising JAL’s flight to “continue approach”.
Some domestic flights were operating on Wednesday morning from Haneda, one of the world’s busiest airports, but dozens were cancelled.
France’s Airbus, which manufactured the JAL plane, said it would send a team of specialists to help Japanese authorities investigate. Investigators from Britain, where its two Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines were manufactured, were also due to join.
The passenger plane had arrived from New Chitose Airport serving Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido. Those on board included eight children.
The coast guard plane had been preparing to fly to Ishikawa prefecture to deliver supplies after the devastating New Year’s Day earthquake that killed at least 62 people.
Prime minister Fumio Kishida praised the deceased crew members on their way to help the victims of the quake.
“These were employees who had a high sense of mission and responsibility for the affected areas,” he said Tuesday.
In 1985, a JAL jumbo jet flying from Tokyo to Osaka crashed in central Gunma region, killing 520 passengers and crew.
That disaster was one of the world’s deadliest plane crashes involving a single flight.