Japan earthquake relief plane hits passenger jet killing 5 people in Tokyo

Japan earthquake relief plane hits passenger jet killing 5 people in Tokyo

A city in Ruins wajima on Japan’s Noto Peninsula laid waste by the earthquake food is being delivered by air but today a Coast Guard Plane enlisted in the aid effort met with disaster apparently colliding with this Japan Airlines plane just as it lands which instantly bursts into flames there are

379 passengers and crew on board I was wondering what happened and then I felt the plane tilt to the side at the runway and then there was a big bump at first this is all they can see as the pilot tries to control the plane smoke pours into the

Cabin Children Cry people shout as they realize the danger they’re in As the Flames spread people start jumping onto an inflatable slide falling over and running away from the plane I heard an explosion about 10 minutes after we got off we’ had been in trouble if we’d left even a little later I can only say it was a miracle we could have

Died the Japan Airlines crew has been praised for saving everyone on the plane as that aircraft comes into land it’s still doing uh quite a high speed when it’s collided with something that was presumably stationary or or or moving at 90 degrees to it that’s that’s a big

Impact and it’s likely to have torn uh open perhaps the the fuel tank and that’s why you saw such a large fire now the the the purpose of the aircraft structure is to protect the passengers for as long as possible the cabin crew of this aircraft did an incredible job

For them to react so swiftly to to protect the exits that were perhaps too dangerous to use to send passengers in the right Direction I think they’ve done a phenomenal job the Airbus burned for hours eventually breaking up on the Coast Guard Plane Bound for the earthquake zone only the captain

Survived five crew were killed Japan’s prime minister paid tribute to them these people had carry out their jobs with a strong sense of Duty and responsibility for the disaster stricking areas and victims this is a very un incident and I would like to offer my sincere condolences and express

My respect and gratitude for their sense of Duty the Prime Minister said it’s a battle against time to save more than a hundred people trapped in buildings destroyed by the earthquake soldiers have been dispatched but rescue efforts are being frustrated by broken roads this woman says she’s only just got back into her home after a previous

Earthquake I don’t think we can rebuild again she says in some areas almost every house has been destroyed the government says the accident at haneda airport will not affect Aid flights it says the cause of the crashes as yet unclear well Michelle Robson is a former air traffic controller and she joins me

From Guilford in Su was this an entirely avoidable tragedy these two planes shouldn’t have been using the same Runway no obviously they shouldn’t but it is a highly unusual occurrence there’s not been one like this for many years fortunately after the tener incident in 1977 a lot of safeguards were put in to

Stop this sort of thing happening but uh obviously the one of the aircraft shouldn’t be been there at the moment it looks like it was probably the um smaller aircraft should not have been on the runway the preliminary um transcript of the air traffic control Communications which I stress is not in

Any way official appears to to have cleared the uh coast guard air aircraft to be uh holding short of the runway and not actually on the runway because obviously the Japan air had been cleared to land right and and so obviously there’ll be an investigation into that

But I suppose it could be the kind of emergency situation with the earthquake meant that communication wasn’t as as nailed down as it should have been I I don’t believe that is actually the case I suspect it’s uh probably some kind of pilot or controller era as it

Normally is in these sort of cases and and unfortunately normally you’d expect the controller to have noticed that the aircraft had entered the runway um but it remains to be seen what uh stopped the controller from see that there are some uh theories that perhaps it wasn’t

Showing the correct label um they should have a label on the surf surface movement radar that shows the controller where they are when visibility is is not as good as it should be so that could be an option but I don’t believe that the earthquake actually caused any

Communication ER from what I’ve seen of the transcript it does appear to be fairly normal and it was an incredibly Speedy evacuation of the passenger jet um this type of plane it’s an a350 isn’t it is it held up pretty well allowing those passengers vital minutes to escape didn’t

It yes absolutely and modern aircraft have very strict standards one of those standards is the amount of time it takes to evacuate so the general standard is 90 seconds to evacuate an aircraft and that’s with assuming that 50% of the exits can’t be used which was actually similar to this case because the

Over-wing exits were not in use due to the fire and and the Sparks coming from the engine so they did really well to evacuate under very difficult circumstances it’s natural for passengers to start panicking when they see flames and and obviously there’ve been some sort of collision which must

Have been extremely worrying for those on board indeed I mean you know when you see something like this it is clearly terrifying to watch it especially if you’re a bit scared of flying um but I mean it’s still the safest sector isn’t it the aviation sector I I think it’s

The safe safer last year than any previous year commercial Aviation absolutely and there’s now so many safeguards as I mentioned before there there are many safeguards that were in place at Hana um for example the surface movement radar where they can track aircraft across the Airfield even

In poor visibility there’s also a Runway um incursion tool that stops aircraft going onto the runway when there’s something else on there um but in most of these cases is it’s normally a sequence of events rather than one single thing which is what makes it so rare because there’s so many safeguards

It takes a lot of those to fail to have something like this and I think the main thing is that uh all the passengers did get out safely so in that respect all the procedures worked Michelle Robson thanks very much for joining us

Rescuers in Japan have been struggling to reach coastal areas where many are feared trapped under collapsed buildings after the powerful earthquake on New Year’s Day.

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At least 55 people are known to have died after the initial 7 point 6 magnitude earthquake – the deadliest to hit the country in eight years – struck the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture.

As rescuers battled to find survivors, there was further tragedy in the capital Tokyo. A Coast Guard plane, preparing to fly earthquake aid from Haneda Airport to Niigata collided with a Japan Airlines jet. Five people onboard the coast guard plane died. But everyone on the burning passenger aircraft managed to get out safely.
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