Five of the six occupants of a Japanese coast guard plane died after the aircraft collided on the ground on Tuesday at Tokyo-Haneda airport with a Japan Airlines airliner, the Japanese Minister of Defense announced. Transportation.
The images are impressive. An Airbus A350-900 crosses the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport, appearing to slide on its belly, and sparking a fire under its sides. The plane has finally stopped, and emergency services are working to put out the fire.
Japan Airlines assured that the approximately 367 passengers on the plane, as well as the 12 crew members, were evacuated. Among them, at least seventeen were injured. However, five of the six occupants of the coast guard plane were killed after the impact with the Airbus. Only one of them, the captain, managed to escape in time.
This plane collided with the other aircraft shortly after landing, according to the Kyodo news agency, adding that the Japanese Ministry of Transport was investigating the accident. Debris also littered the track and more than 70 fire engines were deployed on site.
Tokyo-Haneda is one of the Japanese capital’s two international airports, and one of the busiest in the world. Accidents involving airliners are extremely rare in Japan. The most serious of these occurred in 1985, when a Japan Airlines plane crashed between Tokyo and Osaka, killing 520 people, one of the worst disasters in the history of aviation.