A Japan Airlines plane erupted into a ball of flames after crash landing at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Tuesday. The runway was also set alight.
The airline said all 379 passengers and crew had been safely evacuated from the downed domestic flight, according to Reuters news agency and NHK.
Live footage on public broadcaster NHK and other outlets showed the aircraft erupt in flames as it skidded down the tarmac and fire crews feverishly tried to extinguish the fire.
Japan’s coast guard says its aircraft – which is thought to have collided with the passenger jet – was on its way to Niigata Airport to deliver aid to the earthquake-hit Noto peninsula, according to the news agency Reuters.
Japanese broadcasters TBS and NHK say one person onboard the coastguard plane escaped, while the other five remain unaccounted for.
A spokesperson at Japan Airlines said its aircraft had departed from Shin-Chitose airport in Hokkaido.
Japan has not suffered a serious commercial aviation accident in decades.
Its worst ever was in 1985, when a JAL jumbo jet flying from Tokyo to Osaka crashed in central Gunma region, killing 520 passengers and crew.
That disaster was one of the world’s deadliest plane crashes involving a single flight.
Tuesday’s accident came after a series of powerful earthquakes that hit western Japan have left at least 48 people dead and damaged thousands of buildings, vehicles and boats, as Breitbart News reported.
Officials warned that more quakes could lie ahead.
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