Transport safety officials searched for a voice recorder from the severely burned fuselage of a
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
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
JTSB experts have so far secured both the flight and voice data recorders from the coast guard’s
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
New details have also emerged from media footage at
In the footage, the coast guard aircraft is seen entering the runway from the C5 taxiway, then shortly after the passenger plane touches down right behind and rams into it, creating an orange fireball. The JAL airliner, covered with flames and spewing gray smoke, continues down the runway before coming to a stop.
Transcript of the recorded communication at the traffic control, released by the transport ministry Wednesday, showed that the air traffic controller told the coast guard plane to taxi to a holding position just before the runway, noting its No. 1 departure priority. The coast guard pilot repeats the instruction, then offers thanks for the No. 1 slot. There was no further instruction from the control allowing the coast guard to enter the runway.
The pilot told police investigators that his aircraft was struck just as he powered up the engines after obtaining clearance to take off.
The small lights on the coast guard aircraft and its 40-second stop might have made it less visible to the JAL pilots and air traffic control.
The JTSB investigators on Friday planned to interview seven JAL cabin attendants to get their accounts, after their similar interviews with the three pilots and two other attendants the day before.
A team from the aircraft manufacturer, Airbus, was also joining the investigation, a requirement under international aviation safety rules, according to the board.
Aviation safety authorities from
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This story corrects the type of aircraft to A350 instead of A320, in the second and last paragraph.
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