TOKYO — A day after a large passenger plane and a Japanese coast guard aircraft crashed on the runway and burst into flames, transport officials and police began separate investigations into the fatal collision at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.
The question for investigators. Why was the smaller coast guard aircraft — a Bombardier Dash-8 — on the same runway as the Japan Airlines Airbus A350 came in to land on Tuesday?
“We have recovered the voice recorders and flight recorders for Coast Guard plane,” Takuya Fujiwara, a senior investigator with the Japan Transport Safety Board told a news conference, adding they were still looking for the “black box” from the other plane.
Police began a separate inquiry into possible professional negligence, the Kyodo News agency reported.
A spokesperson said that a team of officers were conducting interviews and investigating Runway 3-4 Right where the planes collided, according to Reuters. But they declined to comment on whether they were looking into possible professional negligence, Reuters reported.
All of the 379 passengers aboard Japan Airlines flight JAL-516 were evacuated after an orange fireball erupted from the aircraft and continued down the runway in flames, spewing smoke following the collision.
But more than 24-hours after the crash one of the passengers William Manzione said he could still “feel the adrenaline running.”
As the plane came down he told British broadcaster Sky News that “there was a huge impact.” (Sky News is owned by Comcast, the parent company of NBC News.)
“When I got off my seat I started to see flames out the windows and then I realized this is not good,” he said. “When I saw the inflatable slide, I understood this was bad.”
Within 20 minutes, all of the passengers and crew members slid down emergency chutes and survived.
The pilot of the coast guard plane, which exploded, escaped with injuries but five crew members were killed.
Japan Airlines said in a news release…
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