Sundiata Post – A Japan Airlines plane is engulfed in flames after landing on a runway at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Tuesday evening.
Live footage showed passengers fleeing the aircraft using inflatable slides and running away across the tarmac.
It wasn’t immediately clear what had happened or if there were injuries, but Japan’s state broadcaster NHK TV, citing officials with national carrier Japan Airlines (JAL), said all passengers and crew — about 400 people — had been evacuated. The network said the plane was JAL flight 516, which had flown out of Shin Chitose airport in Japan to Haneda, a major international air hub outside Tokyo.
The Japan Coast Guard said it was looking into unconfirmed reports that one of its planes had crashed into a JAL flight at Haneda.
The AFP news agency quoted a coast guard official at Haneda Airport as saying the agency was still “checking details,” and that it wasn’t clear if there had been a collision, but that it was “certain that our plane is involved.”
Haneda is one of the busiest airports in Japan, and many people travel over the New Year holidays.
The incident came just a day after a series of earthquakes rocked western Japan, killing almost 50 people in the Ishikawa prefecture.