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Japan airlines’ miraculous escape and what an accident in 1985 had to do with it
Japan Airlines Flight 516 had a lucky escape when the plane exploded into flames after hitting a coastguard plane while landing at Tokyo's Haneda Airport.
Firefighters work at Haneda International Airport after Japan Airlines' A350 airplane caught on fire, in Tokyo, Japan January 2, 2024. REUTERS/Issei Kato
Everyone on the plane survived the dramatic event and aviation experts have attributed the positive turn of event to the crew’s excellent training and the passengers discipline during the evacuation.
The swift evacuation was as a result of obeying simple instructions from the flight staff to leave their luggage behind. According to aviation experts, this easy action carried out on the airplane was a big reason why the evacuation worked perfectly with the last person getting out just before the airplane started burning on the runway.
Director of the fire safety engineering group at the University of Greenwich in London, Prof Ed Galea was quoted saying, “I don’t see a single passenger on the ground, in any of the videos I’ve seen, that has got their luggage with them… If people tried to take their cabin luggage, that’s really dangerous because it would slow down the evacuation.”
According to BBC news, Japan Airlines got its own big accident in 1985 when Flight 123 went down on a mountain after taking off from Tokyo Haneda. This tragedy took the lives of over 500 people.
The disaster was blamed on bad fixes by the Boeing company and since then, Japan Airlines has kept a perfect safety record to the extent of receiving accolades as the “top” airline when it comes to safety.
The airline’s promise to keep safe is shown in a museum-like place close to Haneda. It was opened in 2006 and shows the pieces from the 1985 crash.
The dramatic evacuation of all passengers on the 2nd of January 2024 probably has a lesson learned for everyone traveling by plane.
