Japanese passenger plane's fiery collision with coast guard aircraft kills 5

A passenger plane burst into flames as it landed at a Tokyo airport Tuesday, after a collision with a coast guard aircraft that killed five people, officials said.

All 379 passengers and crew were able to make it out of the Japan Airlines plane, Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito said at a news conference. The coast guard pilot escaped but five crew members were killed, he added.

The coast guard aircraft was going to fly earthquake relief to Niigata prefecture on the country’s west coast after a series of strong tremors killed at least 48 people and left widespread damage, Saito said. There was no immediate information about the cause of the accident, he added.

Dramatic footage from the Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed plumes of orange fire and black smoke engulfing the passenger jet as it landed at Haneda Airport in the country’s capital.

Video showed the plane’s side and areas around the wing on fire at first as it taxied on the runway, before the fire spread to the cabin and rescue crews rushed to the tarmac. The local fire department deployed at least 70 firetrucks and other vehicles to extinguish the fire, NHK added.

The passenger plane had entered the airport’s Runway C from the south on landing and then crashed into the coast guard plane on the runway, said Shigenori Hiraoka, the director general of the ministry’s civil aviation bureau.

The Transport Safety Board will investigate the incident immediately, he said at a joint news conference with coast guard officials. French accident investigators are headed to the scene as well, according to a post on X from the Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses.

A passenger on the Japan Airlines plane told Swedish media that “the entire cabin was filled with smoke within a few minutes.”

Swede Anton Deibe, 17, told newspaper Aftonbladet: “We threw ourselves down on the floor. Then the emergency doors were opened and we threw ourselves at them.”

“The smoke in the cabin stung like hell. It was a hell. We have no idea where we are going so we just run out into the field. It was chaos,” added Deibe, who was traveling with his parents and sister.

NHK reported the plane was JAL Flight 516, which had taken off from New Chitose Airport in the northern Japanese region of Hokkaido at 4:15 p.m. local time (2:15 a.m. ET), according to FlightAware.

Japan Airlines said it was in the process of interviewing the crew.

“The plane entered the runway in a normal manner and started normal landing procedure before there was impact and caused this accident. we have confirmed up to this point. but anything beyond that, the investigation is ongoing,” Managing Executive Officer Tadayuki Tsutsumi told a news conference.

All runaways at the airport were closed shortly after the incident, said NHK citing the Japan Airport Terminal, which manages the airport’s domestic terminal. The airport appeared to resume operations hours later, according to Flight Aware. A plane heading to San Francisco took off at 11 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET), the site showed.

Yoshio Seguchi, an official from the coast guard, expressed his condolences to everyone affected by the accident.

“The loss of the life of our irreplaceable employee is a matter of the utmost regret,” he said in a presser. “May the souls of those who lost their lives rest in peace, and extend I my deepest condolences to the bereaved family.”

Haneda Airport, also known as Tokyo International Airport, was the busiest airport in the Asia Pacific region in 2023, according to global flight data provider OAG.

Arata Yamamoto reported from Tokyo, and Larissa Gao from Hong Kong.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com