Japan looks into Tokyo airport crash, over 300 flights canceled

TOKYO - Japan's transport authorities on Wednesday started probing the cause of a collision between a Japan Coast Guard aircraft and a Japan Airlines (JAL) passenger plane at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Tuesday evening, which led to over 300 flight cancellations.

The Japan Transport Safety Board, the government-affiliated agency in charge of probing serious accidents involving airplanes, trains and ships, examined the aircraft wreckage during the day while police also inspected the accident site.

The safety board reported that it had retrieved the flight and voice recorders of the Coast Guard aircraft and was still searching for those of the JAL plane, which had flown from New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido Prefecture, according to local media outlets.

A Haneda air traffic controller had permitted the passenger plane to land on a runway before the crash took place, and had ordered the coast guard aircraft to "hold short of the runway," national broadcaster NHK reported, citing sources with Japan's transport ministry.

The plane's crew members had told the company that they proceeded with the landing after confirming with air traffic control and that there were no abnormalities with the aircraft during the flight, national news agency Kyodo quoted JAL as saying on Wednesday.

The crash forced the airport to shut down all runways for several hours on Tuesday evening, leading to cancellations of 226 flights to and from Haneda, affecting over 40,000 passengers.

Despite the reopening of three runways on Wednesday, about 100 flights are still expected to be scrubbed on the day, disrupting the travel plans of 19,000 passengers.

At around 6 pm local time on Tuesday, JAL Flight 516, an Airbus A-350, was landing on Haneda's C-runway when the Coast Guard flight MA-722, a Bombardier Dash-8, collided with it, with both aircraft catching fire.

Television footage on Tuesday showed a large burst of fire erupting from the side of the JAL plane as it taxied on a runway. The area around the wing then caught fire. The footage seen an hour later showed the blaze engulfed the aircraft.

Five of the six crew members aboard the MA-722 were confirmed dead, while the captain who managed to escape earlier was severely injured.

The Coast Guard plane, which belongs to the Haneda Airport base, was taxiing on the runway to transport relief goods for quake-hit areas in Niigata Prefecture after a series of temblors of up to 7.6 magnitude struck central Japan on Monday afternoon, according to Coast Guard spokesperson Yoshinori Yanagishima.

Meanwhile, all 367 passengers and 12 crew members on board the JAL flight escaped from the airplane while it was on fire without life-threatening injuries after the collision.

The Tokyo Fire Department said it took more than eight hours to extinguish the fire following the crash.