Investigators were focusing on communication between air traffic control and two aircraft at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Wednesday, a day after a large passenger plane and a Japanese coast guard aircraft collided on the runway and burst into flames, killing five people.
The accident occurred Tuesday evening when the Japan Airlines flight 516 plane landed on one of Haneda’s four runways after the coast guard aircraft — a Bombardier Dash-8 — had also entered, preparing to take off.
An orange fireball erupted from both aircraft as the JAL plane continued down the runway covered in flames while spewing gray smoke. Within 20 minutes, all 379 passengers and crew members slid down emergency chutes and survived. The pilot of the coast guard plane, which exploded, evacuated with injuries but five crew members were killed.
The Transport Ministry released a transcript of air traffic control communication of about 4 minutes and 27 seconds just before the crash. It showed no clear takeoff approval for the coast guard plane. According to the text, the Tokyo air control gave the JAL Airbus A350 permission to land on Runway C, noting that there is a departing plane, with the JAL pilot repeating the action.
The coast guard plane said it was taxiing to the same runway, and the traffic control instructs it to proceed to the stop line ahead of the runway. The controller noted the coast guard gets the departure priority, and the pilot said he was moving to the stop line.
Their communication ends there. Two minutes later, there was a three-second pause, apparently indicating the time of the collision.
Police began a separate probe into possible professional negligence. Tokyo police said that investigators examined the debris on the runway and were conducting interviews.
The JAL plane had flown from Shin Chitose airport near the northern city of Sapporo, and the coast guard Bombardier was preparing to depart for Niigata to deliver relief supplies to the central regions hit by powerful earthquakes on Monday that killed more than 60 people.
