Tokyo
5 dead as Japan plane catches fire after collision with coast guard aircraft at Tokyo airport
Tokyo/IBNS: Five people aboard a Japan Coast Guard aircraft died Tuesday when it hit a Japan Airlines passenger plane on the ground resulting in a fiery collision at Tokyo's Haneda airport, media reports said.
All 379 passengers and crew on board the passenger plane that caught fire were safely evacuated.
However, five of the six crew members from the coast guard plane, which was bound for central Japan after Monday's huge earthquake, could not be saved. The captain escaped and survived but was injured.
The cause of the accident is yet to be known.
Video footage showed the passenger jet, a Japan Airlines Flight coming from New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido moving at Tokyo's Haneda Airport and then igniting with a large fireball.
According to reports, all passengers and crew members were evacuated from the flight using emergency slides.
Japan Airlines flight JL516, an Airbus A350-941, collided with a Coast Guard plane at Haneda Airport:pic.twitter.com/60DlACUDJc
— Aviation Safety Network (ASN) (@AviationSafety) January 2, 2024
As per the flight tracking site FlightAware, the aeroplane was an Airbus A350-900.
Japan has not recorded a major commercial aviation accident in decades.
In 1985, at least 520 passengers died when a JAL jumbo jet flying from Tokyo to Osaka crashed in the central Gunma region.
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