
Moments of panic and fear have been experienced by the 367 passengers and 12 crew members of the "Japan Airlines" plane, which collided with a coast guard plane and burst into flames shortly after landing at Tokyo's Haneda airport.
Among the passengers who were on board, including 8 children, there was agony for their fate, as the media published images from the plane when the engines burst into flames and from the moment of the evacuation of the passengers, which was carried out in record time.
Footage broadcast by state broadcaster NHK showed the plane engulfed in flames as it landed on the airport's runway, with passengers being ejected using emergency exits and an inflatable coaster.
Firefighters can also be seen at the scene trying to put out the fire, while it must be said that the plane was completely burnt.
Video captures passengers escaping a burning Japan Airlines plane on the runway of Tokyo's Haneda Airport after it landed and burst into flames.
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) January 2, 2024
It's reported to have collided with a Japan Coast Guard plane on the tarmac ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/6iVBjyRckB
A Japan Airlines spokesman clarified to the media that the plane had taken off from Hokkaido's Shin-Chitose Airport in northern Japan and the fire broke out when it landed at Haneda Airport on Tuesday afternoon.
At the press conference, the Tokyo Fire Service reported that 17 people, passengers and crew members, were injured. So one of the plane's passengers told the media: "On landing I heard a boom, as if we hit something" - adding that the cabin immediately filled with smoke.
Swedish Anton Deibe, 17, a passenger confessed: “The whole cabin was filled with smoke within minutes. The smoke in the cabin was like hell. We jumped to the ground, then the emergency doors opened and we jumped into them. We had no idea where we were going, so we ran out into the field. It was chaos."
死ぬかたたますpic.twitter.com/S7rDPmyssl
— あ (@alto_maple) January 2, 2024
What concerns the authorities now is to ascertain the causes that led to the accident, in order to proceed with the appropriate division of responsibilities.
In a press conference held hours after the accident by the Civil Aviation Service, the Japan Coast Guard (which owned the other plane involved in the incident) and Japan Airlines, they presented the available data, without concluding precisely on the conditions under which the collision occurred.
According to the representative of the civil aviation service, it is still not possible to determine how the fire broke out in the plane, while communications with the airport control tower are being examined.