TOKYO, Japan – Japanese authorities are investigating a tragic plane collision that left five people dead at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Tuesday. The incident involved a Japan Airlines passenger jet and a Japan Coast Guard plane on the runway.
The collision resulted in the deaths of five out of six crew members on the Coast Guard plane, while all 379 passengers and crew aboard the Japan Airlines flight were safely evacuated. Fourteen passengers on the jet sustained minor injuries, and the Coast Guard pilot suffered severe injuries.
The Airbus A350-900, operating as Japan Airlines Flight JAL-516, was making a normal landing on Runway C when it struck the awaiting Coast Guard plane, a turboprop De Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8.
The tragic incident led to a fire on the runway, prompting passengers to use evacuation slides to exit the jet before it was engulfed in flames. More than 100 firefighting vehicles were reported to have taken six hours to extinguish the blaze.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation, with particular attention being drawn to the fact that the Coast Guard plane was reportedly not equipped with a modern ADS-B transponder, according to Flightradar24. ADS-B, or Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, provides crucial real-time information about an aircraft’s position and identification.
The Coast Guard plane was on a relief mission to Niigata after the region was struck by a devastating earthquake, while the Japan Airlines flight was arriving from Sapporo in the northern region of Hokkaido.
As specialists are being sent to assist in the crash investigation, it is worth noting that fatal accidents in the aviation industry are becoming increasingly rare, as reported by the International Air Transport Association. In 2022, there were a total of five accidents with deaths among passengers and crew, down from seven such accidents in 2021, according to the association.