A Japan Airlines plane collided with a smaller coastguard plane during its landing at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Tuesday, January 2. All 379 passengers and crew on board the Japan Airlines (JAL) flight evacuated the burning plane before it was engulfed in flames, but tragically, five of the six people on board the coastguard plane did not survive the collision. It took firefighters eight hours to extinguish the fire completely.
The plane, a commercial A350 commissioned in 2021 to JAL from manufacturers Airbus, had its fuselage and wings composed of carbon-fibre composite materials. These materials are less heat resistant than metal. Experts are examining the plane’s materials to understand how they aided the evacuation, which took 18 minutes in total. Despite the intense fire, there were no fatalities among the 367 passengers.
According to Dr. Sonya Brown, a Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Design at the University of New South Wales’ School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, aviation engineers have increasingly used carbon fiber composite materials to reduce weight and increase efficiency of planes. However, these materials may start to lose stiffness at around 200 degrees, well below the temperatures seen in the fire at the Tokyo airport.
Furthermore, Emile Greenhalgh, Professor of Composite Materials at Imperial College in London, mentioned that the burning of composite materials may have formed an added heat shield for passengers and crew on board. An ongoing investigation is focused on establishing why the two planes collided, with reports suggesting that the JAL plane was cleared for landing while the coastguard plane was not yet cleared for take-off. Airbus has committed to providing technical assistance and dispatching a team of specialists to assist in the investigation.
In conclusion, the collision between the Japan Airlines and coastguard planes at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport resulted in a devastating loss of life on the coastguard plane, while miraculously, all passengers on the JAL flight were safely evacuated before the plane was engulfed in flames. The ongoing investigation will work to clarify the reasons behind the tragic incident.