Japan Airlines jet in flames after crash with earthquake relief plane at Tokyo airport – BBC News

Japan Airlines jet in flames after crash with earthquake relief plane at Tokyo airport – BBC News

Hello I’m Lauren Taylor and we start with breaking news from Japan fire Crews at Tokyo’s haneda International Airport are tackling a serious Blaze on board a Japan Airlines Airbus a350 plane well these are live pictures and across the last hour or so we’ve seen Flames steadily engulf the craft reports

Suggest the plane collided with a coast guard plane on the runway and this was the moment the plane landed at hedo International most of the 379 people on board the plane passengers and crew have been safely evacuated according to Japan Airlines although several are missing that’s from the

Coast Guard Plane that was involved in the Collision a spokesman said the aircraft had arrived in Tokyo from the northern island of Hokkaido Japan’s Coast Guard says its aircraft was on its way to nigata airport to deliver Aid to the earthquake hit Noto Peninsula that’s according to

Reuters well let’s uh return to the scene at the moment at the airport where the firefighters been trying to tackle that Blaze now for around about 2 hours and Professor gra brawe from Cranfield University uh has rejoined us and just for people who are just starting to

Watch this now tell us about that that moment when the the plane came in and and what you what your thoughts are given the scale of the fire that’s uh resulted from that Collision so there’s a limited amount of information available other than that CCT V footage which seems to suggest um

That the aircraft has collided with that Coast Guard aircraft which has has presumably encroached onto the uh Runway clearance area so the a350 that’s Landing which is that Jal aircraft quite a large uh aircraft seems to have have hit something if you look at the damage

On the the left hand engine it it looks like it’s clearly impacted something and that that presumably has then ruptured uh fewel lines I don’t know on which aircraft you can see a very large Fireball at that point and then from that point on that there appears to be

Fuel leaking which is is is causing that that fire as the aircraft uh rolls out to a stop you know clearly for the flight deck crew they were likely to have seen what was happening there’s very little in fact there’s nothing really that they can do at that very

Late stage it looks like it was too late to go around um so so so whatever they’ve hit uh has been at that very last moment and then their focus will have been on making sure that the aircraft stops as quickly as it can and at that stage the fire service would

Have uh tried to respond to be there within 2 minutes to be be starting to um lay foam onto the the ground knock about their Flames enough so that people can evacuate from that aircraft and it seems as that procedure was quite uh efficient and the 379 people on on board did all

Get out safely um and it sounds it looks as though they were very lucky because then what happened afterwards has been has been quite extraordinary the level of um flames and and kind of Destruction to that plane has been really quite rapid and and quite extreme I I I think to hear that

Everybody got off that gel aircraft is is is an incredible positive and and it shows you just how much has gone into that in terms of aircraft design in terms of the design of the the cabin for people to be able to safely evacuate and in particular in terms of of the crew

Training so so the cabin crew in particular would have made a huge difference we know from prev accidents that when something happens even for those who were prepared as passengers and in this case they were not prepared this was was clearly a surprise event it’s really how the cabin crew open the

Exits alert people which direction is safe to go uh they will shout at people to make sure that they move swiftly they don’t try and bring anything with them and so on and of course it’s the cabin crew who are the last off the aircraft so I think years of training um just

Just the whole approach that Japan Airlines take and and and all the airlines around the world will have made a huge difference to this successful outcome in terms of the investigation now um we know that the plane that uh the Coast Guard Plane that was involved

In this incident was on its way to deliver Aid to in in an earthquake disaster Zone how much do human factors normally play a part in in in accidents like this I mean is that something you’ve looked into and tell us how often it’s to do with human

Factors and how often it’s to do with the uh aircraft design and and the rest of it yeah it’s a really important question as to to where the focus the investigation will be and they will start off very open-minded uh and we’ll try and make sure that they gather together as much

Of of the evidence that might be perishable so so in other words the eyewitness testimonies and so on will become very important recorded data will become very important and and of course we want to understand human actions but but positive and negative so there’s a

Lot of focus on the fact that in in many accidents we see human factors mentioned as in some some cases the leading cause but actually usually there are many factors around that and and the bit that sometimes we forget is that the human performance is often a very positive

Thing as well so we may find for example on the crew of The Landing aircraft that their decision um to to to continue with the landing and land the way they did might have actually saved more lives than if they for example tried to go

Around and and we we don’t know the the circumstances of that yet area that you bring up there cuz actually that that decision would have been I mean presumably if you if you have something on fire you you do want to to come into land but but as you say

You you don’t necessarily know whether there’s something else on the ground that would that would cause more of a problem so that that would have been a sort of split-second decision from the from the pilot and and I think at this stage we’re still not not completely

Clear as to where the event happened was it was it as it was Landing did it did it hit something on that on that Landing uh role obviously it happened in the dark so so as for what the crew could see whether that aircraft was moving whether it was moving rapidly the the

Coast Guard aircraft all of these things were factored in and the the the flight deck crew would have had to make a a a split-second decision same for the cabin crew uh and so on so when we look at human factors investigation we don’t just look for the errors that people

Made we also look for their positive actions and in some cases that is actually more useful in terms of informing future training uh and so on so so we’ll definitely take that not for blame approach and definitely try and learn positives as well as uh identify the negatives and and it’s interesting that

You you say as you say that that in this case it does seem as though 379 people are off safety and that’s a major achievement unfortunately the crew of the Coast Guard Plane five of them are still missing after that collision and one is known to have uh survived and got

Out we don’t know about the others um tell us a bit about the the the scale of the fire afterwards though because although although pass have got off quite quickly presumably it will be a bit alarming for Airlines and for airports and anybody who deals with with

Passenger safety to see quick just how fast the the fire spread afterwards um and that’s a very new plane a350 will that be in part to do with the materials they use these days for building planes look it would definitely be part of the investigation to establish whether that

Is indeed a feature you know whether the construction and a largely composite fuselage has contributed to that but actually for this type of event um a severe Collision like this we would be unsurprised to actually see um the size of that fire actually the important thing is whether we protect the

Occupants of the aircraft during that initial phase of the fire so although it looks very shocking and it and it looks particularly shocking because it it happened at night obviously it’s a very uh bright Fireball actually we may find the aircraft did its job very well in protecting the occupants until it was

Safe uh and the fire service had arrived to to to help them evacuate so I appreciate for a passenger none of this felt safe but actually if the outcome is that everybody uh was able to get off that a350 successfully then actually that’s a really uh positive outcome uh

Whilst acknowledging that the very tragic outcome for for potentially for those on board the other aircraft and and you you were talking earlier about the safety culture at Japan Airlines tell us a bit more about that so it was fascinating that they that they learned from one of the incidents back in the

Early 80s or mid 80s tell a bit more about how that that that incident and and what they learned from it so so Japan Airlines unfortunately suffered an accident in 1985 where due to a a faulty repair the um the rear bulkhead protecting the the aircraft blew out and

Actually took the tail off the aircraft uh and and the crew uh somehow managed to fly on for about half an hour um until unfortunately it hits a a mountain side and 505 people lost their lives in that accident and it’s the world’s worst single aircraft accident and none of it

Was J’s fault and yet the reaction in Japan Airlines was was a deep sense of loss of of their own colleagues of their passengers you know had a profound effect on them but but also on Aviation safety globally um but within Japan Airlines about 20 years later employees

Were saying we’re we’re we’re perhaps forgetting what it’s like to get it wrong you know we have new employees coming in who perhaps assume that Aviation is safe and it’s not uh all is not because of all that huge effort that actually goes into keeping

It safe we want to remind people of what goes into it so they created a a center in their corporate headquarters uh safety Promotion Center it included artifacts from that accident from from some of the letters that passengers wrote before the aircraft eventually crashed and every employee whatever

Level in the company has to go through that as part of their induction and they learn about how incredibly important safety is and how much hard work goes in to deliver that so that’s a really important part of their culture as an airline and and I know having worked

With with various people there over the years there is a a profound personal commitment towards safety and and you know I I know any any kind of accident um we find tragic as an aviation family but but particularly for Japan Airlines this this will be a difficult day

Professor GRE brawe thank you very much indeed uh for joining us and your expertise on the subject thank you

A Japan Airlines plane has burst into flames as it landed on a runway at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.

Japan Airlines says all 379 people on board – passengers and crew – have been evacuated.

Footage shows passengers fleeing the aircraft using inflatable slides and running away across the tarmac.

It’s thought the aircraft collided with a Japanese coastguard plane delivering earthquake aid.

Five people who were on board the coastguard plane have died, AFP news agency quotes Japan’s transport minister as saying.

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