The Japan Coast Guard plane that collided with a commercial airliner with nearly 400 people on board at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Tuesday did not have permission to enter the runway, according to flight control communications released by the Ministry of Transportation. Japanese transport. Five crew members of the Coast Guard plane died.
"In the transcription of the communications there was nothing that could be considered a permit to enter the runway," said Toshiyuki Onuma, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Office of the Ministry of Transportation, in statements reported by the local Kyodo agency.
However, the captain of the coast guard ship, the only survivor of the six crew members who were on board, said that he had permission to enter the runway and, in other statements, he would have indicated that he had permission to take off.
In the communication records between the air traffic controllers and the company that operated the commercial flight, Japan Airlines (JAL), there was also no indication about delaying the landing, so experts point out that it is possible that both parties were unaware of the presence of another ship on the runway.
According to state broadcaster NHK, the JAL pilot told his company that he could not see any aircraft as he approached the runway and that he had received permission from controllers to land.
The Ministry of Transportation, through its Transportation Safety Board (JTSB), is investigating the accident at Haneda airport, one of the busiest in the country, after the JAL commercial flight from Sapporo (north of the country) collided with the coast guard plane on Tuesday.
The accident occurred shortly after the JAL plane landed at 5:47 p.m. local time (9:47 GMT) in Haneda and collided with the Coast Guard ship, causing both aircraft to catch fire and forcing passengers and crew to evacuate.
The 379 occupants of the commercial flight managed to be evacuated, although 14 of them were injured, while of the six occupants of the coast guard plane, only the captain, who was seriously injured, managed to save his life.
The Coast Guard aircraft was preparing to transport food and water to those affected by the strong earthquake that hit the western coast of central Japan on Monday.
