Japan Airlines plane in flames on runway at Tokyo's Haneda airport

stopthatgirl7 OP , 6 months ago

2024 is not here to play, ffs.

GlitzyArmrest , 6 months ago

The important bits, since it wasn’t clear to me if people were trapped on board:

The plane, which had taken off from Sapporo, collided with a coast guard plane, NHK said, citing authorities.

All 379 passengers and crew on board were evacuated, media reports quoted the airline as saying.

stopthatgirl7 OP , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

The plane hit a Japan Coast Guard plane on landing. Five of the six crew members of the JCG plane are missing.

Edit: now the news is saying two are dead, and the captain is in critical condition.

girlfreddy , 6 months ago

Now …

Police in Tokyo confirmed reports that the five coastguard crew members had died, and said the pilot was severely injured.

Ilovethebomb , 6 months ago

Notice how there are flames coming through the fuselage above the windows? The fire has burned through the airframe.

That airframe is a complete and total loss.

stopthatgirl7 OP , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

Oh, it very much is.

And in case the picture doesn’t show, here it is.

FlyingSquid , 6 months ago

It’ll be fine. Just use a little Bondo…

girlfreddy , 6 months ago

The runway was also on fire. :/

assassinatedbyCIA , 6 months ago

The first a350 hull loss. The type only started flying in 2013 and entered service in 2015. This particular unit was about 2 years old. This is a very new plane to have completely destroyed. What a shame.

chitak166 , 6 months ago

Wow, the first thing is footage without a talking head over it.

I must be dreaming.

poopkins , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

Copying my post from another thread:

JAL flight 516 (registration JA13XJ) Airbus A350-941 from Sapporo to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport collided while landing with a coast guard aircraft JA722A Bombardier DHC-8-315Q MPA “Dash-8” that belonged to Haneda Air Base, which was awaiting departure to Niigata with aid following the New Year’s Day Earthquake.

The Washington Post reports:

All 367 passengers and 12 crew members escaped the passenger plane, while five people on the coast guard plane were still unaccounted for, NHK reported.

The pilot of the coast guard aircraft had evacuated and contacted officials, but the other five crew members were unaccounted for and the condition of the aircraft was unknown.

CNN reports that 17 passengers were injured and that the coast guard pilot remains in critical condition.

Further insights

This marks the first hull loss of an A350. The Dash-8 involved, JA722A, also called under its alternative registration, MA722 “Mizunagi.”

Additional notes from planespotters.net:

In the collision, the nose gear of the Airbus A350 collapsed and the engines caught fire whilst the aircraft came to a stop. The right hand engine was unable to be shut down and continued to run during the evacuation of the passengers. The aircraft has been fully engulfed in fire and has been completely destroyed.

Videos and photos suggest that three slides were used in the evacuation (both front, rear port side):
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/2fa2987c-edc8-4dd1-86fb-02243ec780db.jpeg https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/27e2a9b3-5fce-4bc3-989e-4722e4bd8cd2.jpeg

A video on Twitter shows the number two engine still running and spraying sparks, which is likely why the rear starboard side slide was not used.

Smoke was present in the cabin during evacuation.

Speculation on causes

An interesting observation is the nose cone damage on the A350 and what appears to be crushed remains of the Dash-8:
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/cb489826-b4b8-4543-8cf8-cdae438d6887.jpeg

One user on Twitter writes:

I’ve been listening to the air traffic control [~15:00] immediately before the accident between JAL Flight 516 and JA722A (Japan Coast Guard aircraft) at Haneda, and at least as far as I can hear, two minutes before the accident, the Japan Coast Guard aircraft was told, “JA722A No.1 Taxi to Holding Point -1” was issued from tower control, but it appears that permission to enter the runway was not issued until the accident.

ATC communication is captioned in this video.

In the video from the original post it’s noteworthy that the queued up aircraft DAL276 and JAL545 are not visible, which suggests the collision happened further down the runway from C-1, likely closer to holding point C-5. A user on Twitter remarks that “the air traffic control instructions were C-1 [and] because [JA722A] misheard it, it was holding short at C-5.”

From here, there are two possibilities:

1. JA722A entered onto the runway from C-5 without ATC clearance.
2. ATC, unaware that JA722A was positioned at C-5 and assuming them to be holding at C-1, may have cleared them to enter the runway as JAL516 had passed C-1 at this point. This might not be on ATC recordings due to overlapping transmissions.

While the following image showing the runway incursion point is circulating, there is currently no concrete evidence to support either theory:
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f244345b-ee93-44e6-a05b-529790b51345.jpeg

Here I’ve highlighted both holding points C-1 and C-5 on the HND airport diagram:
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e9c8946f-096d-4198-84d1-81292de8e0fb.png

JAL 516 touched down on 34R, and while flightradar24 doesn’t show any aircraft on the runway ahead of them, it should be noted that JA722A was not equipped with a modern ADS-B transponder:
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/922da67d-4954-4cc4-b47b-3ecdcfa5f969.jpeg

If JA722A (which cannot be tracked by flightradar24) was instructed to hold at C-1, it’s peculiar that DAL276 is instead holding at that position:
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7f535afd-b314-403d-b47e-4cd2bd5b46be.png

Please remember not to jump to conclusions as we do not have all the facts yet.