JAL A350 accident at Tokyo Haneda (02/01/2024)

[WatcherZero]

Reports a flaming JAL A350 has just landed at Tokyo Haneda after colliding on approach with a Japanese Coastguard plane. Not hit mainstream news yet.

Update: All 379 passengers and crew on board the commercial flight reported to have evacuated safely, 1 person evacuated from coastguard plane and 5 unaccounted for.

 

[thejuggler]

Having just seen the footage from the airport webcam the pilots did an amazing job getting the plane down.

All from the Airbus escaped - 379 passengers and crew which again is remarkable. Coastguard aircraft crew unaccounted for.

 

[jagardner1984]

Those photos really are a gulp moment …. Incredible from the A350 team there were no casualties on that aircraft at least.

Major programme of diverts into NRT as you’d expect - with departures stacking up on the taxiways.

The sort of incident that reminds you of the juxtaposed incredible resilience and incredible fragility of Aviation.

 

[WatcherZero]

I presume Noto Airport is still shut due to the crack in the runway caused by the earthquake.
Latest I heard is the entire Noto Peninsula has shifted between 1.3m at the tip and 50cm at the base to the west as recorded by several meteorological stations positioning systems.

 

[Bayum]

Are reports that the plane hit another plane mid-air or on landing? The video looks like landing is when the first big flare of flames but could have happened seconds before.

 

[MalaiseForever]

Are reports that the plane hit another plane mid-air or on landing? The video looks like landing is when the first big flare of flames but could have happened seconds before.

On the runway. Not mid-air.

 

[WatcherZero]

Looks like a Japanese Coastguard Bombardier Dash-8 loaded with Earthquake aid taxied onto the runway while the A350 was just wheels down and the larger plane ploughed straight through it being pretty much still at stall/threshold speed.

 

[Jamesrob637]

One confirmed survivor from the Dash 8 (the captain), the other five currently still unaccounted for. Apparently, the Dash was on its way to the earthquake-affected region with supplies. Pray for more survivors there. At least everybody on the JAL flight was ok. Japanese airlines are very safe and standards are high.

 

[Bayum]

Will be very interesting to see what the ATC convos were beforehand.

 

[thejuggler]

Apparently the Dash 8 didn't have a modern ADSB transponder so the Airbus pilots wouldn't have been aware of a runway incursion.

 

[randyrippley]

17-minute news report
In Japanese but the images don't need translation

film of the evacuation

hard to believe that they all got out

Just two fire tenders at the passenger plane, presumably the rest had gone to the coastguard aircraft. Seems it took an hour for more to arrive
Note the passengers - with kids - standing and watching

 

[ainsworth74]

Feels like there will have been some absolute heroics on the flight deck of the JAL flight and from the cabin crew in the back to complete their landing roll out safely and then evacuate hundreds of passengers from their burning aircraft.

 

[jfollows]

Will be very interesting to see what the ATC convos were beforehand.

From initial comments at https://www.pprune.org/ it is suggested that the JAL arrival was the first in a planned sequence of arrivals on runway 34R which had been used for departures before then.

ATC live recordings are available and JAL516 was cleared to land 34R. It was the first of a number of aircraft given 34R for landing.

https://archive.liveatc.net/rjtt/RJT...2024-0830Z.mp3

Landing clearance readback at 15mins.
Report of fire at 17mins 20secs

EDIT It’s also mentioned that this is totally normal and generally domestic flights from the north of Japan use 34R under similar wind conditions, to avoid conflict with arrivals from the south.
Also, 34R is a landing on to what is also referred to as “runway C”.

 

[Jamesrob637]

2009 = Miracle on the Hudson
2024 = Miracle at Tokio Haneda

 

[WatcherZero]

Was mentioned the Japanese having a lot of shared military/commercial airports dont tend to rewrite schedules to accommodate emergency flights and just slot them in between existing scheduled commercial slots so the civil controllers may not even have been aware of the coastguard flight in advance of it requesting a takeoff authorisation.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

For anyone who is wondering, the lost A350 was JA13XJ.

 

[Speed43125]

Was mentioned the Japanese having a lot of shared military/commercial airports dont tend to rewrite schedules to accommodate emergency flights and just slot them in between existing scheduled commercial slots so the civil controllers may not even have been aware of the coastguard flight in advance of it requesting a takeoff authorisation.

There would have been a flight strip generated as soon as they got their IFR clearance while they were still on stand. ATC was definitely aware of the aircraft.

Diagram of the incident from the NHK new site.

日本航空 機体炎上“全員脱出” 海保機の5人死亡 乗客14人けが | NHK

【NHK】2日午後6時前、東京 大田区の羽田空港で、新千歳空港から向かっていた日本航空516便が、着陸した直後に海上保安庁の航空機…

www3.nhk.or.jp

 

[edwin_m]

From initial comments at https://www.pprune.org/ it is suggested that the JAL arrival was the first in a planned sequence of arrivals on runway 34R which had been used for departures before then.

The audio is too poor for me to make much of this. Has anyone worked out if the coastguard aircraft had permission to enter the runway?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

There would have been a flight strip generated as soon as they got their IFR clearance while they were still on stand. ATC was definitely aware of the aircraft.

There's a lot of comment on Twitter that the Coastguard pilot overshot the hold mark, which put the aircraft on the edge of the runway. Some confusion between a hold point numbered 1 and one numbered 5 as well as the transmissions were not clear.

That would, however, be speculation at this stage - people are saying he might not have known he was partly on the runway, but I find that difficult to believe given the lights at the edges of every runway, taxiway and holding point at any airport. We might, therefore, be looking at the infamous "Swiss Cheese" holes lining up.

The audio is too poor for me to make much of this. Has anyone worked out if the coastguard aircraft had permission to enter the runway?

Apparently not; he was instructed to hold ( but see my other comment in this post above ).

 

[WestCoast]

Feels like there will have been some absolute heroics on the flight deck of the JAL flight and from the cabin crew in the back to complete their landing roll out safely and then evacuate hundreds of passengers from their burning aircraft.

I would also suspect the mainly Japanese passengers being efficient and compliant in evacuating the aircraft playing a role too.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Absolute miracle they got 379 people off that. Absolutely unbelievable.

 

[WatcherZero]

Going through a few details from the NHK article.
The Coastguard Pilot had been flying that type since 2017 and had been based at the airport since April 2019 when they made captain so they should have been pretty familiar with it.
The Coastguard plane had filed a flight plan that it was taking off at 4:45pm and flying for 70 minutes arriving at Niigata at 5:55pm but obviously hadnt when the accident occurred at 5:47pm.
The Prime Minister was informed at 6:05pm and ordered the emergency response, so the news reached the PM in only 18 minutes!
BBC were the first to break the news at 6:15pm and had video by 6:30pm

Passengers on the JAL plan said they felt a slight bump but not nothing alarming and then noticed fire on the sides of the plane. Some said there was an evacuation order while some said there wasnt, it was a calm evacuation but then they were being instructed to keep alarmingly close to the aircraft after they got off.

 

[Bayum]

2024 = Miracle at Tokio Haneda

Unless you were in the coastguard plane or one of their family members.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Unless you were in the coastguard plane or one of their family members.

Of course, but we could've been looking at 100+ fatalities here and a blot for Japan Air Lines, even though nothing of this was their fault.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

17-minute news report
In Japanese but the images don't need translation

film of the evacuation

hard to believe that they all got out

Just two fire tenders at the passenger plane, presumably the rest had gone to the coastguard aircraft. Seems it took an hour for more to arrive
Note the passengers - with kids - standing and watching

Is that the carbon fibre in the fuselage constructions thats caused the inferno albeit took several minutes to take hold.

 

[randyrippley]

Is that the carbon fibre in the fuselage constructions thats caused the inferno albeit took several minutes to take hold.

Part of the inferno seems to be due to the fire teams standing back and letting the aircraft burn once everyone was off.
They were faced with three fires on the runway and probably had to make some tough choices of what to do. Everyone was off the A350, but there were still possibly people on the burning dash-7, while one of the dash-7 wings and engine was separately on fire half way down the runway
You've got to remember there's still a big question mark over the safety of the residue and smoke from burning composites, and this is only the second composite widebody to have gone up. (The other was the A400M that crashed in Spain).
It seems likely they decided to play safe and let it burn rather than get too close - especially as they were stretched.
Note that immediately after the crash the fire seems to have been only affecting the engines, it seems to have taken some time to spread.
I do wonder if some of the airfield support crew were working elsewhere following the earthquake?

 

[jupiter]

What’s odd, from the graphic provided, is why the coastguard plane has entered the runway one quarter of the way down? There’s nothing as useless as altitude above you and runway behind you.

 

[Ediswan]

What’s odd, from the graphic provided, is why the coastguard plane has entered the runway one quarter of the way down? There’s nothing as useless as altitude above you and runway behind you.

'Intersection' takeoffs are a common aviation practice.

 

[randyrippley]

What’s odd, from the graphic provided, is why the coastguard plane has entered the runway one quarter of the way down? There’s nothing as useless as altitude above you and runway behind you.

Don't assume the graphic is correct. But the dash-7 is a STOL aircraft
There will be a lot of unknowns at this stage

 

[jamesontheroad]

Absolute miracle they got 379 people off that. Absolutely unbelievable.

Not a miracle at all: the evacuation worked exactly according how it was designed to. The survival of all these passengers and crew was the result of hundreds of thousands of hours of research, testing, analysis of real-world accidents and simulations of evacuations, followed by intensive training and repeated careful briefing of crew. JAL and all its employees can hold their heads up high today: everyone did their job exemplarily.