Japan Airline Plane On Fire After Collision With Coast Guard Aircraft, Five Fatalities Reported

On Tuesday, a Japan Airlines aircraft, with passengers still aboard, caught fire on a runway at Tokyo’s Haneda airport, as reported by Nippon TV. The incident was possibly a result of a collision with a Coast Guard aircraft.

The tragic incident occurred at Tokyo’s Haneda airport when a Japan Coast Guard aircraft collided with a Japan Airlines passenger plane on the ground, resulting in the death of five individuals on board the smaller plane.

Fortunately, all 379 passengers and crew on the Japan Airlines passenger plane, which ignited into flames, were safely evacuated, as confirmed by Japanese transport minister Tetsuo Saito in a statement to reporters.

Regrettably, five out of the six crew members aboard the smaller plane, which was en route to central Japan following Monday’s significant earthquake, lost their lives in the fiery collision, Saito reported.

The captain escaped and survived but was injured, he said, cautioning that “we’re not at the stage to explain the cause” of the accident.

Television broadcasts and unverified footage circulating on social media depicted the Japan Airlines (JAL) airliner taxiing along the runway, followed by a sudden eruption of intense orange flames and thick black smoke from beneath and behind the aircraft.

A video shared on the social media platform X captured individuals sliding down an inflatable emergency slide from the side of the passenger plane, while flames emerged from the rear of the aircraft.

Prompt action was taken to evacuate all 367 passengers and 12 crew members from the plane before numerous fire engines, with flashing blue lights, sprayed the fuselage to address the fire.

Unfortunately, the firefighting efforts were unsuccessful in extinguishing the flames emerging from windows near the wings, leading to the rapid engulfment of the entire aircraft in the blaze.

The aircraft, reportedly an Airbus 350, had previously landed at Tokyo’s Haneda airport from New Chitose Airport, which serves Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido. Among the passengers were eight children.

“Smoke began to fill the plane, and I thought, ‘this could be really bad’“, an adult male passenger told reporters at the airport.

“An announcement said doors in the back and middle could not be opened. So everyone disembarked from the front,” he said.

A female passenger recounted that the interior of the aircraft had been in darkness as the fire intensified after landing.

“It was getting hot inside the plane, and I thought, to be honest, I would not survive,” she said in comments shown on broadcaster NHK.