What if you're a pilot and you land at night and suddenly see an airplane in your field of vision, and it's getting bigger?
Maybe you can only slow down and brake as much as possible, do everything you can, and then leave it to fate.
Just yesterday evening, such a tragic scene appeared at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan.
When Japan Airlines flight JAL-516 landed, it crashed into another plane on the runway, and then exploded and caught fire!
There were 367 passengers and 12 crew members on flight JAL-516 at the time of the incident. Due to the timely evacuation, everyone on board fled the cabin before the plane exploded and disintegrated, no one was killed, and only 14 people were injured.
However, the small regional plane on the runway was not so lucky.
There were a total of 6 people at the time of the incident,
In addition to the difficult escape from the captain's serious injury,
All five of the remaining five were killed.
What is even more embarrassing is that a 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck Japan the day before, and the disaster area was severe, resulting in 57 deaths and 137 injuries.
The plane was originally the Japan Coast Guard
Those who are sent to the disaster area to deliver supplies for disaster relief,
Unexpectedly, such an accident happened,
To add insult to injury.
The airliner was completely burned down and scrapped. It was also the world's first scrapped Airbus A350 airliner.
Accident at Tokyo Airport, Japan
The two planes collided, and the airliner caught fire and exploded
At around 5 p.m. local time on January 2, it was just getting dark and Tokyo's Haneda Airport was busy.
As it is the New Year, many people are flying back to Tokyo to end their holidays, and many foreign tourists choose to visit Japan.
However, many travelers at the airport on this evening may have experienced one of the most memorable moments of their lives:
With a loud explosion,
An airplane is like a huge fireball
Charge on the runway!
It was a passenger plane, and it was likely to carry hundreds of people on board.
After the plane did not move, a large number of fire engines were dispatched in a matter of minutes to try to extinguish the fire:
The passengers in the cabin were also panicked: the plane seemed to hit something, and then suddenly it caught fire!
Soon, thick smoke covered the cabin, and the crew coughed incessantly.
Anton Deibe, a 17-year-old Swedish passenger on the plane, said afterwards: "Within minutes, the entire cabin was filled with smoke. We threw ourselves on the floor. Then the emergency hatch was opened, and we rushed to it. ”
Another traveler said, "I thought I was dead." ”
Luckily, there were three more emergency evacuation slides available on the plane, which passengers quickly followed to get out of the cabin.
According to the passenger, there were crew members who told the passengers to stay calm and told everyone to leave their luggage alone.
In the end, the 357 passengers (including 8 children) and 12 crew members on board,
All 369 people survived,
Only 14 people were injured,
None of them are life-threatening.
But the Airbus A350 was not so lucky, and although about 100 fire engines were involved in extinguishing the fire, the fire was too intense.
After hours of hard work, the plane's fire was finally extinguished, leaving only the wreckage behind.
Eventually, the $300 million plane was completely burned, broken in two, and scrapped completely.
In addition, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed that there were 12 Australians on the passenger plane, all of whom had successfully escaped and were fine.
Another plane was preparing to leave for disaster relief
"Survived the 311 earthquake"
Everybody wants to know,
In just a few minutes of landing,
What's going on?
Soon, the latest news came that the Airbus A350 had hit other aircraft on the runway, which meant that a typical runway intrusion accident had occurred.
The plane that was hit was a De Havilland Canadian DHC-8, commonly known as the "Chong-8", which is a small regional airliner belonging to the Japan Coast Guard, which was supposed to carry out a disaster relief mission on the Noto Peninsula earthquake on January 1, and the plane was full of relief supplies.
At the time of the incident, there were 6 people on board,
The captain fled with serious injuries,
The remaining five were killed.
It is said that in the 2011 earthquake off the east coast of Japan,
The plane was damaged at the Sendai airport in Japan,
is the "only survivor" of the airport.
However, it ended up having an accident while carrying out an earthquake relief mission, which is embarrassing.
According to reports, Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has recognized the plane collision that occurred at Tokyo's Haneda Airport that day as an aviation accident and has notified the Japan Transportation Safety Commission.
According to the air traffic control recording at the control tower, the JAL passenger plane was granted permission to land, and the Haibao aircraft was given the command to "taxi to the waiting point".
Air traffic controllers allowed the JAL passenger plane to land on runway 34 on the left, while the Chong-8 was instructed to make a stop. Leave the runway.
For unknown reasons, the plane was still on the runway, leading to the tragedy.
Many friends may also notice that this time the fire and explosion of the passenger plane seems to be particularly serious, in the case that the airport has urgently dispatched a large number of firefighting forces, the whole plane is still almost completely burned down, the fuselage is also broken into two, directly and completely scrapped.
According to netizens who know something about Japanese airlines,
This may be the fuel brought by the Haibao aircraft,
It could also be the airliner when it lands
Still with enough oil to cause.
According to data from flightradar24, the passenger plane involved in the accident had to fly a total of 6 flights on the same day (the picture shows the 4 flights that have been flown up, and the subsequent JL527 Tokyo-Sapporo and JL528 Sapporo-Tokyo have been cancelled).
Time is tight between flights, and in order to get the plane to take off as quickly as possible, airlines are likely to carry excess fuel for multiple flights or even a full day.
As a result, the aircraft is likely to land with the fuel needed for the next two flights.
When an accident occurs, these fuels become absolutely "dangerous goods" and are very prone to fire and explosion accidents.
Prior to this, Japan's civil aviation had not had a fatal accident for nearly 40 years (the last time was in 1985), and its safety was recognized.
Unexpectedly, the accident happened.
Haneda Airport is one of the busiest airports in Japan, and the accident has also caused chaos in Japan's air traffic, with a large number of flights diverting or returning.
Runway incursions are dangerous
It has caused many tragic air crashes
The crash was a typical runway incursion accident.
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) 2006 definition, a runway intrusion is an incident in which any aircraft, vehicle or pedestrian mistakenly appears on the surface of a protected area in an airfield used for take-off and landing of aircraft.
This is easy to understand: when an airplane takes off and lands, nothing should be on the runway.
And this time, there were other planes on the landing runway of the passenger plane, causing a tragedy.
The most famous runway intrusion accident occurred in 1977, when KLM flight 4805 (KL4805) and Pan Am flight 1736 (PA1736) collided while taking off from Tenerife airport in Spain.
A fire exploded, killing 583 people.
It is also one of the most tragic civil aviation accidents in human history.
On November 18, 2022, a passenger plane in Peru crashed into a fire truck on the runway during takeoff, killing all three people in the fire truck and injuring more than 35% of the passengers on board.
When a large civil airliner hits a smaller target, it is like a large truck hitting a small car on a road.
In the darkness of the night, pilots could hardly tell what the lights on the ground were coming from.
However, with the continuous advancement of science and technology, the ground tower should now be equipped with a high-power radar, which can scan the runway in time, and theoretically can also stop the landing of passenger aircraft to avoid accidents.
Therefore, the specifics of this accident are still to be further investigated.