The survivors of the collision of the two planes at Tokyo airport testify… A team of international experts must elucidate the circumstances of the accident.
They survived the horror… This Tuesday at Tokyo airport, the collision of a Japan Airlines Airbus with a Japanese coast guard plane left five dead among the occupants of the latter, none in the first, the 367 passengers and 12 crew members were able to be evacuated before the aircraft caught fire.
But the latter are starting to tell what they experienced, in testimonies reported by several international media, or videos published on social networks. Moments after the accident, this young Swede captured the chaos aboard the smoky plane. Fortunately, the emergency evacuation was quickly triggered.
The circumstances of the accident are still to be clarified and in particular why the two planes collided. A team of international experts, including Airbus technical advisors who worked on the A350 design, are participating in the investigation.
“As an accident investigator, I focus on what happened much longer ago, how the two planes collided and the moments that passed until that everyone who could be saved was saved. You know, clearly if the reports are correct, everyone managed to evacuate that plane, then that’s fabulous news.” explains Tim Atkinson, pilot and aviation consultant.
It is the first major accident involving an A350, a new generation aircraft built largely from innovative materials such as carbon fiber reinforced plastic.
All flights from or to Tokyo-Haneda have been canceled. Planes already on their way were diverted to other airports in the capital. 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.