A ‘miracle’: plane erupts in flames landing in Tokyo, but all aboard survive
As flight attendants yelled, urging passengers to evacuate, an eerie orange glow burned outside the windows of Japan Airlines Flight 516. The harrowing scene was caught on video from inside the plane, which collided with a Japanese Coast Guard aircraft as it was landing on Tuesday in Tokyo. Through skill and luck — one aviation expert called it “a miraculous job” — the flight crew of the Japan Airlines plane evacuated all 367 passengers and 12 crew members safely at Haneda Airport near Tokyo Bay, according to Japan’s transport minister, Tetsuo Saito. But five Coast Guard members, who had been headed to help with the earthquake relief in Western Japan, were killed, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said during a news conference. NHK, the public broadcaster later said 14 people had been injured on the passenger plane. “The root cause of this accident is not known yet,” Saito said at a news briefing, adding that the country’s transport safety board and other agencies would work to determine what had happened. Video aired by NHK shows a fireball streaking across the tarmac as the plane touched down. As frightening as that looked from outside the plane, it was even scarier inside, said Anton Deibe, a 17-year-old Swede who was on the plane with his family, as quoted in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. He told the newspaper that his family did not understand exactly what was happening or the announcements, which he said were in Japanese. His father, Jonas, told the newspaper, “The entire cabin was filled with smoke within a few minutes,” adding: “We threw ourselves down on the floor. Then the emergency doors were opened, and we threw ourselves at them.” “The smoke in the cabin stung like hell,” Anton told Aftonbladet. He said that once they got out of the plane, he and his family had run out “onto the field.” Japan Airlines said that the plane had left New Chitose Airport in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido at 4.15 p.m., and was scheduled to land at Haneda at 5:35 p.m. but landed at 5:47. A Coast Guard official said the Coast Guard aircraft had started taxiing to the runway around 4:45 p.m., about an hour before the collision. The airline said that according to interviews with the operating crew, the pilots “acknowledged and repeated the landing permission from air traffic control,” and then proceeded with the approach. In its statement, Japan Airlines said that the cause of the accident was still under investigation and that it was cooperating with officials. According to Japan Airlines, the aircraft’s announcement system malfunctioned during the evacuation, so the crew used a megaphone and their voices.<br/>
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A ‘miracle’: plane erupts in flames landing in Tokyo, but all aboard survive
As flight attendants yelled, urging passengers to evacuate, an eerie orange glow burned outside the windows of Japan Airlines Flight 516. The harrowing scene was caught on video from inside the plane, which collided with a Japanese Coast Guard aircraft as it was landing on Tuesday in Tokyo. Through skill and luck — one aviation expert called it “a miraculous job” — the flight crew of the Japan Airlines plane evacuated all 367 passengers and 12 crew members safely at Haneda Airport near Tokyo Bay, according to Japan’s transport minister, Tetsuo Saito. But five Coast Guard members, who had been headed to help with the earthquake relief in Western Japan, were killed, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said during a news conference. NHK, the public broadcaster later said 14 people had been injured on the passenger plane. “The root cause of this accident is not known yet,” Saito said at a news briefing, adding that the country’s transport safety board and other agencies would work to determine what had happened. Video aired by NHK shows a fireball streaking across the tarmac as the plane touched down. As frightening as that looked from outside the plane, it was even scarier inside, said Anton Deibe, a 17-year-old Swede who was on the plane with his family, as quoted in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. He told the newspaper that his family did not understand exactly what was happening or the announcements, which he said were in Japanese. His father, Jonas, told the newspaper, “The entire cabin was filled with smoke within a few minutes,” adding: “We threw ourselves down on the floor. Then the emergency doors were opened, and we threw ourselves at them.” “The smoke in the cabin stung like hell,” Anton told Aftonbladet. He said that once they got out of the plane, he and his family had run out “onto the field.” Japan Airlines said that the plane had left New Chitose Airport in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido at 4.15 p.m., and was scheduled to land at Haneda at 5:35 p.m. but landed at 5:47. A Coast Guard official said the Coast Guard aircraft had started taxiing to the runway around 4:45 p.m., about an hour before the collision. The airline said that according to interviews with the operating crew, the pilots “acknowledged and repeated the landing permission from air traffic control,” and then proceeded with the approach. In its statement, Japan Airlines said that the cause of the accident was still under investigation and that it was cooperating with officials. According to Japan Airlines, the aircraft’s announcement system malfunctioned during the evacuation, so the crew used a megaphone and their voices.<br/>
