A Japan Airlines plane carrying hundreds of passengers burst into flames on landing at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Tuesday after it was in collision with another aircraft involved in earthquake relief efforts.
JAL flight 516 ignited after flying into Haneda from the northern Japanese city of Sapporo at 5:47 p.m. local time (3:47 a.m. ET)
All crew members and passengers, including eight children under the age of two, were safely evacuated from the passenger plane, according to the airline. One person on the Coast Guard plane escaped, but five are unaccounted for.
The Japan Coast Guard (JCG) confirms to CNN that one of its aircraft, likely a fixed-wing MA722, collided with commercial flight 516 on the runway.
A JCG spokesman told CNN that the JCG aircraft was headed from Haneda airport to a JCG airbase in Niigata prefecture to help with relief efforts following a 7.5-magnitude earthquake on Monday.
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A Japan Airlines plane carrying hundreds of passengers burst into flames on landing at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Tuesday after it collided with an aircraft involved in earthquake relief efforts.
The aircraft ignited after flying into Haneda from the northern Japanese city of Sapporo at 5:47 p.m. local time (3:47 a.m.
JAL is investigating the details and cause of the plane fire, a representative for the airline told CNN.
Video footage showed the passenger jet consumed by a large fireball as it moved down the runway.
The plane was then seen at a standstill with people using emergency slides to flee the inferno as firefighters tried to battle the growing flames.
A JCG spokesman told CNN that its aircraft had been headed from Haneda airport to an airbase in Niigata prefecture to help with relief efforts following a 7.5-magnitude earthquake on Monday.
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