Five killed after Japan Airlines and coastguard planes collide at Tokyo airport

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Five people have been killed in an aircraft accident in Japan after a passenger plane was in a collision with a coastguard plane at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

The passenger plane, an Airbus A350-900 carrying 379 people, caught fire after colliding with a Japan Coast Guard aircraft that had six people on board.

Five out of the six JCG crew were killed in the crash, while the captain was seriously injured, according to the transport ministry.

All 367 passengers and 12 crew from the Japan Airlines flight managed to flee via emergency slides, according to the airline. Video footage showed the plane skidding along a runway with flames coming from under its wings.

Passengers aboard the JAL plane, who were interviewed by television news crews about two hours after the incident, said they thought the plane had landed safely when they suddenly saw flames outside the windows and smoke filling the cabin.

“We thought we weren’t going to make it,” said one woman travelling with a small child.

The JAL flight, which arrived from the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, was later seen completely engulfed in flames, with emergency services battling to control the blaze.

Haneda airport, which is Japan’s busiest and handles 490 flights per day, closed after the incident but all three runways are now back in operation.

Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida has called for a full investigation into the cause of the accident.

Tourism minister Tetsuo Saito told reporters: “We will put all our energy into investigating the cause and ensuring the incident does not occur again.”

Coastguard officials and a spokesperson for JAL said the collision appeared to have taken place on the runway itself, but footage from public broadcaster NHK appeared to show the JAL flight already in trouble as it neared the ground.

Mobile phone footage shared on social media, which appears to have been shot by passengers aboard the JAL flight, showed the cabin filling with smoke as the plane came to a halt on the runway.

The JCG said it was investigating the cause of the accident.

Saito said the JCG flight had been taking emergency supplies to Niigata to support the region affected by Monday’s earthquake. 

The quake, which triggered a series of major tsunami warnings along Japan’s western coast and caused a large number of fires, landslides and building collapses, has claimed at least 55 lives.