Japan Air A-350 crash

 Japan Airlines A-350 Crash at Haneda, Tokyo

For the last couple of days I have been watching coverage of the collision of an Airbus A-350 and much smaller Dash-8 on the runway at night in Tokyo, Japan. There is so much to learn from the results of this accident.

The fact that almost 400 passengers and crew safely evacuated the Airbus A-350 before the plane was consumed by flames is a miracle. To be certified as a commercial passenger carrier, the plane must demonstrate the ability to evacuate all the passengers out half of the exits in less than 90 seconds. This plane had only three of the eight exits available, due to fire outside. And yet, everybody was evacuated alive.

Several other things made the successful evacuation possible. The passengers listened and followed the orders from the cabin crew. Nobody stopped to grab luggage - they got their bodies off the plane as fast as possible. The mantra is, “Save your life - leave your luggage!”

Another factor was the composite construction of the airplane itself. This is the first accident of this scope involving a plane mostly made of carbon fiber, rather than aluminum. It passed with flying colors, in my opinion. The carbon fiber insulated the interior better than aluminum would’ve, giving more survivable time to get out of the airplane. I understand that they actually used more than the required 90 seconds to get everyone off the plane. I heard one report that said the last person left the plane 18 minutes after the collision. That’s really remarkable. I’m assuming that was the captain. All the while the plane was being evacuated, a raging fuel fire was visible under the belly of the plane, held back from the interior by the carbon fiber material.

The damage on the A-350 demonstrates that the Dash-8 was holding on the centerline of the runway, waiting for takeoff clearance. One report said he waited for 45 seconds before the collision. It was at night, and neither airplane saw the other. The tail of the Dash-8 center punched the nose of the A-350 and broke off the front gear, which dropped the nose of the big plane down on the runway. The fuselage of the big plane straddled the smaller plane and essentially crushed it, starting the fire. The wings of the smaller plane smashed cuts and dents in the inlets of both engine nacelles on the A-350. Five were killed immediately on the small plane, with only the pilot surviving with major injuries.

Several things pop into my mind when I ponder how these two planes met on runway 34R. The tower transcripts show that the Dash-8 was cleared to taxi to 5-C intersection and hold there. To me, as a pilot, that was an incomplete command. I would have been listening intently for one of two words - “hold SHORT of runway 34R” or “hold CLEAR of runway 34-R.” The pilot knew he didn’t have a takeoff clearance. He was waiting for one. He was following the clearance for “Taxi into POSITION and Hold” which was NOT the clearance given to him. Unfortunately, he was waiting in the middle of the runway, where a huge Airbus A-350 had just been cleared to land.

I like to believe that I would have declined the clearance without clarification on the hold position. Since he should have been able look to the right and see the approaching plane, he should have rejected the taxi and hold clearance. Once he entered the runway and turned away, the approaching airplane was invisible, and the crash was inevitable.

If instead, the Dash-8 had been given a “takeoff without delay” clearance, he could have been in the air past the end of that runway and out of the picture in 45 seconds.

Dangerous runway incursions have been far too numerous this past year, for some unknown reason. Is it too many new air traffic controllers? Is it controllers being overworked with long shifts and not enough time to rest? We pilots are living in fear that there is an awful catastrophe in the future if a handle isn’t found to straighten out this problem.

I lived in Japan for a year and a half when I was in the US Army. I had to laugh as I listened to a video on Youtube by a group of guys called Flight Safety Detectives. They described the orderly evacuation of the passengers by the rescue crews after they had exited the plane. They were organized into groups of ten persons and sent marching down the runway away from the burning plane. I had to laugh! Only in Japan would this happen. I had wondered how they knew everyone got off the plane. If they are marching to the building in groups of ten, it’s no problem to get an accurate head count. 

I’m afraid if that happened in the US, they’d still be chasing down passengers wandering around the airport!