A Japan Airlines plane that was carrying nearly 400 passengers burst into flames after colliding with a coast guard jet in Tokyo. Five crew members on the jet were killed. They were aiding victims of the deadly earthquake in Japan that claimed the lives of at least 55 people, according to current updates.
The terrifying moment that the plane burst into flames was caught on video. A passenger on the plane also captured a video from inside, showing the plane erupt into flames as it slid down the runway.
The captain of the coast guard jet was critically injured. The 379 passengers on the plane all managed to escape. Seventeen passengers were injured, though their conditions have not yet been publicly shared.
Firefighters battled the flames for hours at the Haneda International Airport. Officials are currently looking into what communications took place between the JAL plane and the air traffic control at the airport.
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“The entire cabin was filled with smoke within a few minutes,” Swedish passenger 17-year-old Anton Deibe said. “We threw ourselves down on the floor. Then the emergency doors were opened and we threw ourselves at them. The smoke in the cabin stung like hell. It was a hell."
“I felt a boom like we had hit something and jerked upward the moment we landed,” another passenger explained “I saw sparks outside the window and the cabin filled with gas and smoke.”
As the investigation is still ongoing, preliminary reports say that the pilots of the JAL flight did not spot any aircraft on the runway before landing, according to senior vice president of corporate safety and security Tadayuki Tsutsumi. The JAL flight “entered the runway as normal and began landing as normal and that there was an impact, which led to the accident, but we are still investigating further details."
Passengers on another plane preparing for takeoff detailed what the moment was like. “I was in another plane in the window seat — we were getting ready to take off and we heard a big bang," said passenger Guy Maestre. “We looked from our windows and saw a huge trail of flames running down the runway. Flames got higher and higher then we saw fire trucks go by the runway.”
“I didn’t realize it was such a big incident until I saw images on the news,” Mika Yamake, whose husband was on the JAL plane, told CNN. “At first it was just reports of smoke, but then I saw images of flames and I felt more worried. I only realized my husband was on that plane when he called me.”
“We landed normally, didn’t feel a shock or anything,” Mika's husband, Satoshi Yamake, explained. “But then we saw fire coming out of the engines and I found it strange. Just as I was thinking why the fire was burning for so long, an announcement came and said we probably hit something on the runway and we have to now evacuate the plane. We could smell some smoke but passengers were not panicking a lot.”
