Japan Airlines Crash Seriously Injures At Least Fourteen and Kills Five 

It was a normal evening on January 2, 2024, as Japan Airlines flight 516, a large and modern airliner, the Airbus A350-941, was preparing to land at Tokyo’s Haneda airport flying in from Sapporo’s New Chitose airport. There were 376 passengers and 12 crew members on board, and everything seemed calm. 

On the ground was JA722A, a small Coast Guard Dash-8 Q300 small propeller airplane (also known as turboprop) heading out to eastern Japan to help with earthquake relief efforts after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake killed more than 62 people. Six people were on the plane as it got ready for departure.

The taxiing plane drew closer to its designated runway entrance as the ATC (air traffic control) gave permission for the Japan Airlines plane to land, with the pilot’s confirmation following shortly after. ATC then instructed the turboprop to taxi and hold before the runway, which the Coast Guard pilot repeated back seemingly precisely. It arrived at its holding point, but it continued to enter the runway right as the Japan Airlines plane touched down. 

One of the reasons the captain of the huge plane may not have initiated a go-around (a maneuver where the plane abandons its approach path, circles around, and makes another landing attempt) is that the flare (lifting the nose right before touchdown to make the landing smoother) may have lasted a bit long, which may have resulted in the pilot being unable to see the runway ahead. However, according to preliminary reports and interviews with the pilots, it looks like a communication issue caused the incident.

The Japan Airlines plane touched down normally, and as it was slowing down the tail of JA722A struck the left engine of the larger plane. At that point, the plane continued drifting down the runway with the engine ablaze before sharply turning right and stopping in a nearby patch of grass. Within 18 minutes, all 379 passengers and crew had evacuated the A350. At least 17 people on the plane sustained injuries.

All traffic at Haneda was stopped for 3 hours as firefighters responded to the fire. Later that day, all runways except the one on which the crash occurred reopened. The affected runway reopened 5 days later following sufficient cleanup. Black boxes (equipment that records aircraft movement and voice recordings from the cockpit among others) from both planes were found within 2 days after the incident. The final report is expected to be released sometime around 2025.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has somewhat of a worse safety record than its main competitor, All Nippon Airways. In the past 10 years, JAL had three incidents, while ANA had none. In 2004, following an earlier crash that claimed the lives of 520, JAL introduced the “Safety Promotion Center” to try to curb the rise of incidents. Additionally, cabin crew practices the evacuation procedure multiple times until it is done perfectly, among other practices.

While it seems that the coast guard plane is to blame, Japan Airlines also suffered monetary and asset losses. The investigation will continue until all issues are resolved. For now, just remember that accidents like these are very uncommon and rarely result in death.