Hundreds escape from burning jetliner

All 379 aboard blazing Airbus saved after runway collision kills five crew on coastguard plane

HUNDREDS of people escaped a burning passenger jet at Tokyo’s main airport yesterday, sliding to safety before it erupted into a fireball.

Some 379 passengers and crew were evacuated from the Japan Airlines Airbus A350-900 after it collided with a coastguard plane on the runway of Haneda international airport.

Five of the six crew in the smaller plane were killed, with the captain in a critical condition.

The turboprop plane was due to ferry supplies to Japan’s earthquake-ravaged regions.

Security camera footage showed the Japan Airlines jet engulfed in flames as its momentum carried it hundreds of yards down the runway. The aircraft’s nose cone had collapsed and fire was pouring out of both engines and the lower portion of the fuselage.

Keeping calm as the jet filled with smoke, the crew told some passengers to exit via the slides at the front of the plane. Those sitting towards the back were ushered to the rear slide on the left side of the craft, with that on the right no longer functional.

The emergency slides above the burning wings of the plane were also knocked out.

In one video, taken from inside the jet, the left wing is on fire as the plane taxis down the runway. Passengers do not appear to be in panic. In another video, some passengers shout in confusion as they stand up with white smoke filling the cabin.

“For the first time in my life, I felt that my life was in danger,” wrote a woman using the name Ricole on social media.

“I was sitting in seat 45H and immediately after the huge impact, flames erupted from both wings,” she wrote. “Only the front hatch could be opened and the cabin was filled with smoke.

“I escaped with only my cell phone in my hand ... when I arrived at the terminal building, the sight of the plane I was on, burning bright red, was burnt into my eyes,” she wrote. “I was so scared.”

Video posted by Ricole showed passengers evacuating the burning aircraft via the forward right-hand emergency slide, just yards from a burning engine emitting flaming debris.

One passenger fell immediately after stepping off the slide but the evacuation appeared orderly for the most part.

Ryosuke Sakamoto, 55, said there was little panic even with flames licking the outside of the plane. “I feel bad for saying this, but it felt like [I was in] a TV show,” he said. “I think it’s because I managed to get out safely.”

William Manzione, a product manager for a London internet service company, was on the plane. “Everyone is safe and they are taking us back to the terminal,” he wrote on his social media account.

The turboprop coastguard plane was preparing to take off for Niigata to deliver aid and supplies to people affected by Monday’s magnitude-7.6 earthquake in central Japan.

At least 50 people have been killed and rescuers were racing to free more from the rubble yesterday.

As of 10.30pm local time, airport fire crews had put the two fires out but the gutted remains of both aircraft were still smoking. Flights into and out of Haneda have been suspended, with dozens of aircraft diverted.

The Japanese prime minister’s office has set up a crisis management centre to co-ordinate the response to the crash.