Five dead after plane collision in Tokyo
A Japan Airlines plane races across the tarmac on fire after landing in Tokyo. Shortly afterwards, passengers escape via emergency slides. Before that, it collides with another plane. It is too late to help several crew members.
Five people on board the Japanese Coast Guard aircraft died in a collision with a passenger plane on a tarmac at Tokyo's Haneda Airport. According to Japanese media reports, the pilot of the Coast Guard bombadier plane was seriously injured. The approximately 400 people on board the Japan Airlines (JAL) aircraft were able to leave the passenger plane, which had caught fire. It collided with the Coast Guard plane immediately after landing for reasons that are still unknown. The Coast Guard wanted to use the plane to transport material to the earthquake zone on the west coast of Japan.
According to media reports, the collision occurred after the passenger plane had landed. The JAL aircraft, flight number 516, coming from Hokkaido in northern Japan, caught fire on the runway and burned out completely. TV pictures showed the plane driving across the tarmac before flames shot out and the plane came to a halt. There were 367 passengers and 12 crew members on board. They made their way to safety via emergency slides.
According to the Kyodo news agency, the coast guard plane also caught fire. It was on its way to Niigata Airport to deliver relief supplies to the Noto Peninsula region affected by the earthquake. At least 48 people have died in a series of earthquakes there since New Year's Day. All runways at Haneda Airport are closed following the incident, an airport spokesman said.
Video footage apparently taken by a passenger on the airliner shows flames shooting up from the floor of the plane and the cabin filling with smoke. The authenticity of the footage could not be immediately verified. Haneda Airport is one of two international airports in the Japanese capital and is one of the airports with the highest passenger numbers in the world.
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Source: www.ntv.de
