A350 burning out at Haneda

[railsquid]

JAL516 from Sapporo; though to have collided with another aircraft on landing; all passengers/crew evacuated.

 

 

 

And it's only January 2nd...

[railsquid]

I don't think that will buff out, somehow.

 

 

The other aircraft was apparently from the Japanese Coastguard. Collision occurred just after the A350 had landed.

 

[railsquid]

The coastguard aircraft was apparently on its way to Niigata with relief supplies for the earthquake...

[Grant_T]

17 minutes ago, railsquid said:

The coastguard aircraft was apparently on its way to Niigata with relief supplies for the earthquake...

 

I don't hold much hope for that crew unfortunately. In some footage you can see a bunch of debris at the start of the runway.

[railsquid]

Apparently one person escaped, five unaccounted for.

[Tony Galiani]

What an awful start to the New Year.  It seems like all the passengers got out safely.  Which is pretty amazing and surely a tribute to the flight crew to manage the evacuation.

 

I am already having friends ask me if I am cancelling my February trip.  We are still planning to go - no reason not to as far as I am concerned.

 

Cheers,

Tony

 

 

[kuro68000]

I'm also very glad that almost everyone got out okay. There has been a lot of coverage on the news in Japan, as you might expect.

 

It seems that the pilot of the coastguard aircraft is saying that he had permission to enter the runway, but the transcript of ATC communication doesn't now show them giving that. In other words, it looks like confusion lead to the coastguard aircraft entering the runway by mistake.

 

It's not the first time something like this has happened. Over the years a lot of effort has gone into standardizing the language used when talking to ATC, to avoid any ambiguity or misinterpretation.

 

The runway is still closed as there is an active investigation going on.

[railsquid]

Dunno if this is available outside Japan, but TV report from ANN with continuous video from a passenger from the point of collision (time in top left is elapsed time from that point):

 

 

Took longer than the theoretical 90 seconds to evacuate because communication between cabin crew was limited to megaphones, and it took time to establish which doors could be opened safely, but on the whole it seems to have gone as good as possible under the circumstances.

Edited January 5 by railsquid

[Doddy]

Given that fact that five of the eight escape routes were unusable due to fire, that left three escape routes, the 18 minutes it took to let everybody off the plane has been put down to the combined efficiency of the JAL attendants and the fact that the slow burning Carbon Fibre bodyshell significantly increased the ability of passengers to leave safely over a conventional aluminum fuselage fire.

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, Doddy said:

Given that fact that five of the eight escape routes were unusable due to fire, that left three escape routes, the 18 minutes it took to let everybody off the plane has been put down to the combined efficiency of the JAL attendants and the fact that the slow burning Carbon Fibre bodyshell significantly increased the ability of passengers to leave safely over a conventional aluminum fuselage fire.

To the contrary, CF and resin burns more quickly than aluminum. And CF fibers suspended in the air potential health hazard, even after the fire has been extinguished.

[Doddy]

To the contrary, Airbus themselves amongst other airline safety experts acknowledged this FACT in the airline investigation into the accident. The fuselage burnt more slowly than an aluminum fuselage - FACT!

[Kingmeow]

15 hours ago, Doddy said:

To the contrary, Airbus themselves amongst other airline safety experts acknowledged this FACT in the airline investigation into the accident. The fuselage burnt more slowly than an aluminum fuselage - FACT!

 

Yep!

 

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/carbon-fiber-airframe-likely-played-a-role-in-jal-516-evacuation/

Edited January 7 by Kingmeow

[railsquid]

Per live feed, wreckage of the A350 has almost been cleared away:

 

 

Feed (live at time of posting, not sure if visible outside Japan): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpu03-9Xt2M

 

Edited January 7 by railsquid

[katoftw]

I hazard a guess the the runway surface needs to be resurfaced also. Would be big burn holes everywhere.

[kuro68000]

TV news now reporting that some passengers tried to take their belongings, and had to be shouted at to abandon them.

[Tony Galiani]

I watched the JAL safety video on line and it is the only one I have ever seen that explicitly addresses both leaving belongings and how to use the emergency slides.  The animation about luggage is very clear (though I expect some people would still try to take their belongings).  Still all and all, things went well under the circumstances.  I see a lot of second guessing about the evacuation but the fact remains that everyone got off the plane with the captain and two flight attendants last off.  Pretty impressive.

Tony

 

BTW - when I travel, I keep our passports and phone with me so would not have to worry about those items in an emergency.

[cteno4]

6 hours ago, mojo said:

TV news now reporting that some passengers tried to take their belongings, and had to be shouted at to abandon them.

sadly this happens all the time. I use to sort of snicker when they use to mention that in the older, longer flight attendant safety speeches. This was because when I was a kid I use to fly from San Francisco to Pennsylvania and texas each summer, usually by myself on direct flights. I started this when I was 5. Usually the crew would find someone willing to sit with me to watch over me in case of emergency (usually serviceman or minister). When I was 8 something happened on a flight over Colorado and plane headed to Denver for an emergency landing, dumping fuel and landing with emergency vehicles all along the strip. Landing was fine and we just stopped at the end of the tarmac and they Rushed a few stairways up and had us get off the plane. They kept saying don’t take any carryons but half the people were trying to. I was put with an elderly priest who kept trying to get his large valise out of the overhead (sort of wedged in there) and I was yell at him they told us to leave stuff, he just did not want to listen. I remember thinking does he need to see flames drop the bag and get moving?! The flight attendant finally had to yell at him as I was sitting in the window and he the center so I was blocked getting out. She was about to have me climb over the seats when he finally listened and left his large valise and evacuated.
 

Nothing happened with the plane, so all was good there. Probably some mechanical failure and they worried about fire or landing gear coming down, hence the precautions, they never told us. But then after a couple of hours and they brought in all the carry on for folks to claim which took a while as you had to describe what was in it. Then arranging new flights, quite a hiccup. But it was lucky they paired me with the priest as he was absolutely clueless to air travel and airports and I had to walk him thru the whole process to get the two of us to Baltimore as he was incapable of following any instructions. But luckily I had flown a lot by then and it was pretty straightforward for me to figure out. I ended up being the one taking him by the hand to lead him to the next step each time, it was pretty funny. Airline staff should have handled me but it was chaos at the airport and they just figured the priest would take care of me,yeah right! It was also good as at that point folks were pretty frazzled and tempers flailing, people getting rude (I remembering thinking at that point this was a situation we could have died in why is everyone being so mean to each other, they should be happy!) but most were polite to us with him being a priest.

 

jeff