Looks like a crash on the runway. Everyone successfully evacuated, but possibly crashed into another aircraft?
Theyâve not had a good couple of days over there, have they?
Not good. We were looking at flying with JAL to Haneda to watch the Suzuka F1 in 2026.
Maybe Iâll fly BA instead.
From what I can gather reading the news at work it appears to be an on the ground collision? So it could just as easily be related to the airfield ops or the other aircraft I guess? (In which case flying BA wouldnât have helped!)
2 Likes
Also, clearly the cabin crew did a good job. From the video Iâve just seen of the initial fire ball I am amazed this isnât a repeat of Tenerife!
Seemingly a collision with Coastguard Dash-8 aircraft; video clips show probably on the runway.
Fantastic job for the crew in getting all the pax off alive - cultural benefits? Do as you are told??? Regardless, bravo.
Now to establish the cause? Runway incursion? Landing on wrong runway (think that there is a parallel)? Incorrect ATC instructions (no language barriers here as with the Charles de Gaulle fatal collision some years ago).?
1 Like
Apparently this is the first full hull-loss accident of an A350 too.
JAL have an excellent safety record, I can think of at least two BA major crashes in recent years, LHR and Macarran. Both 777 write offs. Remember fly ABBA at all times.
When I saw this crash, my mind immediately went to the Singapore Airlines crash in Taipei in 2000 - which was caused by the wrong runway (a parallel) being used, and the aircraft crashed into construction machinery on the closed runway. But itâs all speculation at this stage until the investigation is concluded.
Again a kudos to the flight crew for managing to get every single person off the passenger jet alive. Looking at how quickly the fireball took ahold, you really wouldnât expect it.
Canât find the link - numerous social media posts all over the place - but a Japanese airline pilot (captain) has been discussing this possibility - landing on 34L instead of 34R.
If both aircraft were incorrectly assigned the same runway, then for runway incursions, many international airports have an alerting system - such as Schipol. Ground-based events only of course.
Schipol have also produced some good safety publications about runway incursions / collisions.
Landing / taking off on wrong runway (or section of runway if performance limited + taxiway landings can be prevented by RAAS - had it in my last aircraft type, very clever system. However, if you have programmed the wrong runway, itâll just give you the âcorrectâ information that you are expecting - confirmation bias.
At busy international airports, there is often no value in having a runway âalertâ for Air Traffic & airborne traffic - they are planning on maximum runway utilisation, so not unusual to have late landing clearance until 200 ft above the runway whilst waiting for departing aircraft to get airborne! In the USA, even worse, you can be #4 in the landing stream, & get landing clearance 10 - 12 miles out, even although you know that there will up to 3 more departures & 3 landing aircraft in front of you!
Finally, when on an approach / landing, I can vouch for the difficulty in seeing another aircraft at night, especially at a runway intersection. Itâs very, very difficult to pick out things out, especially, with other aircraft moving up / down any parallel taxiway or carrying out a runway crossing.
Once, had landing clearance given (at night), but shortly before touch-down, an instruction to make a missed approach was given to us by ATC - the previous landing aircraft (large widebody) had turned too tightly on an intersection (to make a 140 deg turn) & for whatever the reason, stopped with the aircraft tail still in the âdanger zoneâ - you have to have all the aircraft go past a specific ârunway protected areaâ line for it to be declared clear. We had not seen the hazard.
EDIT - you can have all the recommendations in the world to avoid incursions, but if someone misunderstands instructions & reads them back without the error being picked up (same goes for other ATC instructions, especially altitudes / heights cleared to) then it wonât make any difference.
2 Likes
The BA 27R Bath road incident which had tragic consequences later on.
Or the Air Malta incident when the aircraft landed on the paraell taxiway only 200m from the main runway.
Both incidents happened at night.
From the Telegraph this evening.
Is the amount of carbon fibre in aircraft such as the A350 and 787 going to change how airports deal with fires on aircraft. I listened into the fire frequency the day the 2 MiG 29s crashed at RIAT, the big question for the Red Fire Master on fire channel was âIs there any carbon on the aircraftâ? Before he would allow any of his crew near the incident.
Normally with carbon you use a dry powder to fight the fires as the carbon explodes when heated and water is applied to it, this then releases micro particles into the atmosphere, not good to breathe in.
Maybe not so much as an issue as âoldâ carbon fibre technology - there were similar issues with the latter marks of Harrier.
This is from Airbus Safety - there were comparative write-ups for Dassault biz jets with partial composite materials (Falcon 6X, etc):
- Fire
Fire, Smoke and Toxicity requirements (FST) are applied for all aircraft interior elements. Composite materials are common to both structure and cabin, they therefore also have to fulfil the same smoke and toxicity requirements. Concerning the resistance to fire, it is interesting to note that CFRP is auto-extinguishable and that the thinner composite fuselage skin is more âburn throughâ resistant than a metallic equivalent.
Aircraft fire-fighting = use all means to prevent fire from areas spreading to cabin sections. That could mean foam on wing / engine sections & water spray on fuselage (to cool / minimise smoke). Obviously, foam / water by emergency slides will hinder pax egress!
One of the reasons why you have to have window blinds up for landing - fire crews can see inside to note smoke / fire spreading - for pax inside, itâs so you can help orientate yourself with any outside lighting. Same for dimming the lights for a night landing - night vision!
One of my ex-colleagues, a flt attendant who worked at JAL, she concurs with me - cultural mentality - âdo you are toldâ - probably helped the evacuation immensely.
1 Like
I worked on the ICU that admitted patients from the Airtours incident at MCR in 1985, they came to us some 4 to 6 hours post incident with the effects of the inhalation of hot gases causing respiratory tract swelling due to oedema. They required artificial ventilation until the oedema settled.
The big Oshkosh fire tenders Iâve seen recently have a spike probe which can penetrate the fuselage and spray a water mist to mitigate the effects of heat and fumes within the cabin, as well as vehicle monitors to attack the flames.
1 Like
Pretty sure some of the RAF trucks have those - saw one on a visit - think at BZN?
1 Like
Reports are that the A350 had permission to land and the Coastguard aircraft had been told to hold short of the runway.
Whilst essential for safer gnd ops (& less RT clutter on Twr freq) for busy airports, I always preferred smaller airports with one freq for Gnd / Twr ops - much better overall SA.
Had several âconflictingâ situations with lack of transfer of info from one to the other.
2 Likes