From the limited videos available it appears the Airbus landed on top of a Japanese Coast Guard plane and burst into flames. Looking at the burning hulk, it’s amazing to me that every passenger and crew member evacuated successfully.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/fire-breaks-out-plane-runway-japans-tokyo-haneda-airport-nhk-2024-01-02/
But 5 of the 6 crew on the Coast Guard plane were killed.
Moved to MPSIMS as breaking news, as there is no factual question in the OP.
Video of the collision captured by an airfield surveillance camera. Blurring link; no gore, but the five crew members on the coast guard plane do get killed:
One of the comments on that article says:
According to VAS, JAL 516 was cleared to land by ATC, while the coast guard plane was instructed to “hold”.
Looking at the video, it’s amazing that all the people got off flight 516. The plane was on fire we’ll before it stopped moving.
Twenty seconds of in-cabin footage at the start of this video, from shortly after the A350 came to a stop:
Plenty of yelling (probably some pants-wetting), but amazingly no panic. From what I understand, emergency egress has a significant risk of injury under the best of circumstances, so cabin crew are trained not to go ahead with one unless:
- it’s definitely necessary (i.e. the cabin environment will become incompatible with life in the next couple of minutes), and
- they’ve identified which exits are safe to use.
The crew appear to be taking their time to make sure both conditions were met, and - even more amazing - the passengers stayed seated the entire time, no obvious panic. Wow.
The original article linked by @Fir_na_tine says that the Coast Guard plane had been directed to hold but wound up on the runway, so it looks like an incursion with the worst possible outcome (although miraculously few casualties).
But we’ll see as the news and the investigation develop.
There was a major earthquake on January 1st in Japan that affected their west coast, both in terms of the earthquake itself and water surges from the tsunami. I expect that this accident is related, if only tangentially due to the amount of people affected by the quake. It is amazing that they survived and for anyone who thinks the crew is just there to serve you drinks, here is proof that they are trained professionals that are there to save your life as well.
//i\\
A Hell of a Lotta Lucky People to survive that. Amazing.
Instead of society thinking of flight attendants as waitresses who can do CPR, we should think of them as EMTs who can serve drinks.
I made an emergency exit of a plane (747) when i was 12. One of the engines caught on fire in the air, and the plane was able to make a normal (ish) landing and they sent us all out the slides.
I remember a few details:
- The slides are very rough, so you don’t go too fast.
- Several passengers had minor abrasions from going down the slides, and one threw out her back.
- One of the slides failed to inflate. One passenger chose to jump, instead of waiting his turn at another door. He broke a leg.
- We all got off really fast (despite the missing slide. There’s PLENTY of capacity.)
- Except my father (which is an interesting story, but not relevant to this thread. The short version is that he was more interested in reading about Watergate than in evacuating the plane, but eventually the pilot shooed him off the plane, several minutes after the flight attendants, who leave after the passengers.)
I understand from talking to flight attendants that there’s also a risk of burns, as the friction can melt “plastic” clothing, like nylon. But i think there’s a significant risk of minor injury, and not a lot of risk of major injury from an emergency evacuation.
Directly related, actually. Apparently the Coast Guard plane was deploying to assist the rescue and recovery operations. The earthquake was the reason for the specific circumstances of this incident.
Imagine if this had happened on a US domestic flight. There likely would be many deaths and injuries as American passengers stopped to get their carry-ons and argue with the flight attendants over their rights and their Freedom to get off the plane before they are given directions to do so.
Can you imagine American passengers staying seated, with smoke all around them, as they listen to and wait for crew direction? No? Me neither.
Survived, yes.
But I’m sure many of them have some pretty serious burns and so maybe not a good quality of life going forward.
My exact thoughts.
Only four were even taken to the hospital:
The Tokyo fire department said 14 of those evacuated from the passenger plane suffered minor injuries including burns to the throat. Four were taken to hospital.
The Airbus A350 is a relatively new airframe. As tragic as this episode is, it’s an interesting testimony to how well designed and built it is. Pancaking another aircraft and skidding dozens of meters down the runway on fire, and only 14 injuries?
That’s amazing. Thanks for reporting that.
Then maybe the large amount of flames were due to the burning aviation fuel from the Coast Guard plane that was spilled onto the outside of the landing passenger plane, leaving the inside smoke-filled, but not on fire.
To be blunt, size matters. The Dash-8 is only 11-12 feet to the top of its fuselage and wings, and the A350, based on some pixels-per-foot math in this drawing, looks like it has about 10feet of clearance under the bottom of its fuselage. Basically it looks like the Dash-8 was mostly crushed underfoot, whereas the A350 really only took damage to its radome, front landing gear and low-hanging engines. This helps explain why the A350’s cockpit and cabin stayed pretty much intact. I’d bet that the smoke in the cabin (prior to evac) was just what was drawn in from engine bleed air by the HVAC system before the engines got completely shut down.
The A350 would not have fared nearly as well if it had struck an aircraft with a height similar to its own.
Authorities have only just begun their investigations and there remains uncertainty over the circumstances surrounding the crash, including how the two aircraft ended up on the same runway. Experts stress it usually takes the failure of multiple safety guardrails for an airplane accident to happen.
But transcripts of traffic control instructions released by authorities appeared to show the Japan Airlines jet had been given permission to land while the Coast Guard aircraft had been told to taxi to a holding point near the runway. An official from Japan’s civil aviation bureau told reporters there was no indication in those transcripts that the Coast Guard aircraft had been granted permission to take off. The captain of the turboprop plane said he had entered the runway after receiving permission, a Coast Guard official said, while acknowledging that there was no indication in the transcripts that he had been cleared to do so.