Japan Airline Fire

[oldE]

That ain't gonna buff out.
News feeds this morning have pics of a JAL airlines engulfed in flames on the ground at Haneda. Att 379 passengers and crew are safe.
Reports say there was a collision while landing with a coast guard plane loaded with relief materials for earthquake victims.

Best
Les

[stevej37]

They did a great job of getting everybody out safely.

[unclebilly]

^^^ Hole - E - Fudgicle…

Yup, unbelievable everyone got out ok.

[rfuerst911sc]

Great job by the crew getting everyone out alive . RIP to the 5 military lives lost .

[Rtrorkt]

They had 90 seconds to evacuate. Remember don’t grab for your crap in the overhead.

[David]

Originally Posted by Rtrorkt

They had 90 seconds to evacuate. Remember don’t grab for your crap in the overhead.

Only in Japan does that work

[Scott Douglas]

My daughter and her family have flown out of that airport numerous times when they lived in Japan.

[Rusty Heap]

I've seen video from INSIDE the plane as people are evacuating...............who has the mind-set that when in immanent death by fire.......THEY PULL OUT THEIR CELL PHONE AND FILM!!!!

[ted]

Retired from ATC 15 years ago and last night was having a runway incursion dream and woke up to this news.
Did a controller forget about the CG plane in position and hold waiting for take off?
Like LAX in 91'.
Since the LAX accident now at major US airports there are runway sensors that will issue a mandatory go around to AC short final if the runway has an obstruction on it.

[unclebilly]

Originally Posted by David

Only in Japan does that work

My thoughts exactly… I wonder how many woulda been trampled if this was in NOLA… on a Spirit flight.

[David]

The video is crazy scary! Looks like the A350's left wing hit the coast guard plane and immediately went up in flames. Surprising anybody got out of A350 alive much less everybody.

[Flatbutt1]

I'm very keen in seeing how that flight crew managed such an evacuation. That's impressive and maybe a bit heroic.

[greglepore]

Originally Posted by ted

Retired from ATC 15 years ago and last night was having a runway incursion dream and woke up to this news.
Did a controller forget about the CG plane in position and hold waiting for take off?
Like LAX in 91'.
Since the LAX accident now at major US airports there are runway sensors that will issue a mandatory go around to AC short final if the runway has an obstruction on it.

VAS aviation has atc recording up, but states that the recording precrash was poor so they didn't air it. The site claims tower told CG plane to taxi and hold short. Looks like they were either rolling or not short enough, left wing of Jal hit it and fuel spews everywhere.

[ted]

Originally Posted by greglepore

VAS aviation has atc recording up, but states that the recording precrash was poor so they didn't air it. The site claims tower told CG plane to taxi and hold short. Looks like they were either rolling or not short enough, left wing of Jal hit it and fuel spews everywhere.

Perhaps the CG jet crossed the hold short line?

An international airport like Tokyo should have our equivalent of an ASDE system.
We had one installed at San Diego Lindbergh over 20 years ago.
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/asde-x

At most large airports with 50 to 100+ gates Ground control can be the most challenging control position.
Kinda cool asde time lapse. It shows a runway change too, perhaps do to wind or more likely a weather change requiring an ILS approach?

[greglepore]

Originally Posted by ted

Perhaps the CG jet crossed the hold short line?

Thats the speculation. It was a relief flight for the earthquake, so a double tragedy.

[Jeff Alton]

This is a terrible accident. Truly terrible

Been in the ATC industry for 30 years, far beyond just doing my approach control job.

They did not evacutate 379 passegers in 90 seconds. Think about it...

But, that cabin crew followed all of the rules and did their job beyond the 10th power. Unreal that everyone got off. Great coordiation took place between cockpit and cabin crew to make that successful.

Human error will be the cause. Either on the Dash8 or the control tower. Is what it is. When the reports come out, we need to think deeper into the route causes of whatever the error was. Equipment issues, staffing, or fatigue? Or whatever. It will always be easy to point the finger at the individual that "caused" the incedent, but lets not disregard the factors.

Happy to debate and explain to anyone after the details get revealed.....

Cheers

[Arizona_928]

If it was a southwest flight… everyone would be boned

[WPOZZZ]

Holy crap! How there were no casualties on the JAL plane is a miracle.

[greglepore]

Originally Posted by Jeff Alton

Been in the ATC industry for 30 years, far beyond just doing my approach control job.



Human error will be the cause. Either on the Dash8 or the control tower. Is what it is. When the reports come out, we need to think deeper into the route causes of whatever the error was. Equipment issues, staffing, or fatigue? Or whatever. It will always be easy to point the finger at the individual that "caused" the incedent, but lets not disregard the factors.

Happy to debate and explain to anyone after the details get revealed.....

Cheers

It seems like there have been a ton of incursion type incidents recently-but as a layperson its hard to tell whether its a recent phenom due to increased pressure on crews and atc or whether its just always been but now with VAS and youtube etc every one makes worldwide coverage?

[ted]

One miracle incursion we had was a Bonanza got clearance from our ground control and taxied out to the active runway.
The pilot by mistake dialed in the tower frequency of an airport 10 miles away and requested take off clearance.
The controller at the airport 10 miles away looked at the run up area and saw a Bonanza and cleared it for take off.
So the Bonanza at our airport took off and fortunately there were no aircraft landing at that time.

So error on the pilot for not contacting the correct tower and error on the controller at the airport 10 miles away for not verifying the call sign of the Bonanza in his run up area.
I expect the pilot actually called the wrong airport on the wrong frequency and the controller answered with his airport name so addition missed chances to catch the error before the pilot took off.

Before social media I can tell you the news never got the details correct for any of the incidents they covered at our airport.
When the news cameras came up into the tower cab to get "file footage" none of the controllers wanted to be recorded.