Plane engulfed in flames at Japan airport

TOKYO — A passenger plane burst into flames because it landed at aTokyoairport Tuesday, after a collision with a soar guard plane that killed 5 folks, officials said.

All 379 passengers and crew members made it out of the Japan Airways plane, Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito said at a info convention. The soar guard pilot escaped, but 5 crew members were killed, he added.

The soar guard plane was as soon as flying earthquake reduction to Niigata prefecture on the country’s west soar after a series of robust tremors killed no longer no longer as a lot as 55 folks and left trendy hurt, Saito said. There was as soon as no instant info in regards to the reason for the accident, he added.

Dramatic footage from the Japanese public broadcaster NHK confirmed plumes of orange fire and dark smoke engulfing the passenger jet because it landed at Haneda Airport within the country’s capital.

Video confirmed the plane’s side and areas across the fly on fire because it taxied on the runway, ahead of the fire unfold to the cabin and rescue crews rushed to the tarmac. A local fire division deployed no longer no longer as a lot as 70 firetrucks and a huge range of autos to extinguish the fire, NHK added.

The passenger plane had entered the airport’s runway and then crashed into the soar guard plane on the runway, said Shigenori Hiraoka, the director total of the ministry’s civil aviation bureau.

The Transport Safety Board will investigate straight away, he said at a joint info convention with soar guard officials. French accident investigators are also headed to the scene, the Bureau of Enquiry and Diagnosis for Civil Aviation Safetysaid on X.

A passenger on the Japan Airways plane described how the cabin was as soon as engulfed in smoke inside minutes.

Anton Deibe, 17, of Sweden, steered NBC Files that the plane was as soon as about to land when he regarded to his left and noticed “flames at some stage within the windows.”

“The plane begins to shake and the total lights turn darkish and all people begins screaming in Japanese, and I will have the ability to’t realize the leisure,” said Deibe, who was as soon as touring alongside with his fogeys and sister. “My first thought was as soon as that possibly we had hit a rooster; I had no clue. Nevertheless the plane endured to shake, and then we touched down on the ground. And it felt adore we’d adore breeze.”

“The dark smoke started to infiltrate the cabin … and you had a exhausting time respiratory. So I took my hoodie, the handiest fragment of kit I nonetheless personal left — every part else is burned down — and covered my face,” he said. “Then, after a while, they in some way they opened the doors, and all people, they ran out and then you positively needed to bounce out of the plane.”

NHK reported the plane was as soon as JAL Flight 516, which had taken off from New Chitose Airport within the northern Japanese situation of Hokkaido at 4:15 p.m. native time (2:15 a.m. ET), in step with FlightAware.

Japan Airways said it was as soon as interviewing the crew.

“The plane entered the runway in a customary design and began customary landing map ahead of there was as soon as impact and prompted this accident, we personal confirmed as a lot as this point. Nevertheless the leisure previous that, the investigation is ongoing,” Managing Govt Officer Tadayuki Tsutsumi said at a info convention.

NBC Files aviation analyst John Cox said Tuesday that investigators will peep at air traffic control tapes to establish what took converse as the JAL flight was as soon as cleared to land and for some reason the Japanese soar guard plane was as soon as on that identical runway.

“They’re going to would in fact like to interview the captain who survived the soar guard flight. They’re going to interview the crew of the JAL flight. So that they’re going to peep on the total air traffic — the air traffic transmissions besides to to peep what the airplanes in actuality did, if these instructions were successfully adopted,” he said.

Yoshio Seguchi, an loyal from the soar guard, expressed his condolences.

“The inability of the lifetime of our irreplaceable employee is a topic of the utmost feel sorry about,” he said.

Haneda Airport, also known as Tokyo Global Airport, was as soon as the busiest airport within the Asia Pacific situation in 2023, in step with international flight info provider OAG.

In 2023, a series of excessive-profile shut to-collisions and shut calls at U.S. airports prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to host a safety summit. Cox said the Japan break is at likelihood of enhance the National Transportation Safety Board’s concerns.

Arata Yamamoto reported from Tokyo and Larissa Gao from Hong Kong.