Saturday, January 06, 2024

Japanese safety experts search for voice data as workers clear plane debris from runway collision

Heavy machinery remove the debris of the burned down Japan Airlines plane at Haneda airport in Tokyo Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024. A team of transport safety officials searched for a voice recorder from the severely burned fuselage of the plane,more >

By Mari Yamaguchi - Associated Press - Saturday, January 6, 2024

Transport safety officials searched for a voice recorder from the severely burned fuselage of a Japan Airlines plane, seeking crucial information on what caused a collision with a small coast guard plane on the runway at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

On Saturday, heavy machinery worked for a second day to remove debris of the burned Airbus A350 for storage in a hangar to allow the runway to reopen. Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito said officials were aiming to reopen the runway Monday. Wreckage of the Japan Coast Guard plane had been cleared.

Saito said the airport’s traffic control operation would create a new position for monitoring aircraft movement on runways beginning Saturday. There has been speculation traffic controllers might not have paid attention to the coast guard plane’s presence on the runway when they gave the JAL plane permission to land.

Six experts from the Japan Transport Safety Board on Friday walked through the mangled debris of the Airbus A350-900 that was lying on the runway searching for the voice data recorder.

JTSB experts have so far secured both the flight and voice data recorders from the coast guard’s Bombardier Dash-8 and a flight data recorder from the JAL plane to find out what happened in the last few minutes before Tuesday’s fatal collision.

All 379 occupants of JAL Flight 516 safely evacuated within 18 minutes of landing as the aircraft was engulfed in flames. The pilot of the coast guard plane also escaped, but its five other crewmembers died. The coast guard aircraft was on a mission to deliver relief goods to survivors of powerful earthquakes in central Japan that killed at least 100 people.

PHOTOS: Japanese safety experts search for voice data as workers clear plane debris from runway collision

New details have also emerged from media footage at Haneda airport. NHK television reported footage from its monitoring camera set up at the Haneda airport showed that the coast guard plane moved onto the runway and stopped there for about 40 seconds before the collision.

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