Japan Airlines counts losses from wrecked Tokyo plane destroyed in runway

Japan Airlines on Thursday said it expected losses of over $100m (R1.87bn) after one of its planes was destroyed when it collided with another aircraft on the runway at Tokyo’s Haneda airport this week.

All 379 people on board the JAL Airbus A350 widebody jet escaped before the plane was completely engulfed in flames that took more than six hours to extinguish.

But five of the six crew of the other aircraft — a smaller Coast Guard plane that was in its third mission to deliver aid to quake-hit regions on Japan’s west coast — were killed, with the surviving pilot badly injured.

As investigators combed the charred wreckage on Thursday, transport authorities are probing the circumstances that led to the Coast Guard plane entering the runway where the passenger jet was landing.

Police are also looking into possible professional negligence in the case, according to media reports.

Authorities have only just begun their investigations and aviation experts say it usually takes the failure of multiple safety guardrails for an airplane accident to happen.

A notice to pilots in force before the accident suggested that a strip of stop lights embedded in the tarmac as an extra safety measure to prevent wrong turns, was out of service, according to a copy of the bulletin posted by US regulators.

JAL estimated on Thursday the disaster would result in an operating loss of about 15-billion yen (R1.94bn)

It was the first-ever hull loss globally for the A350 model, according to Aviation Safety Network. The type, made largely from carbon composite, entered commercial service in 2015.