Updates on the Haneda Airport Collision (info for email readers).

What more is known, a day after the crash.

What was left this morning of the Japan Air Lines Airbus that had carried nearly 400 people, all of whom safely evacuated before it was consumed by flames. (Kyodo News / AP photo.)

Yesterday evening I posted an item about the collision that day, January 2, at Haneda airport outside Tokyo.

Today I have updated that post, to reflect information that has come in overnight. The rest of this message consists of just those updates, as a stand-alone email, for readers who might not have seen the changes in the web version.

Thanks to all who have read, shared, and commented. Next up on this site will be a return to election-countdown news.

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Haneda: Day Two Updates

Here is new information since my original posting last night.

1. Where the planes were.

My original guesstimate-illustration showed a collision point about midway down runway 34 Right at Haneda. Evidence now indicates that the Japan Air Lines plane smashed into the top of the Japan Coast Guard plane, which was sitting on the runway, at roughly the spot shown by the red oval on the Google Earth image below, near where taxiways C5 and C6 enter the runway. The red arrow shows the inbound path of the landing airplane.

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2. What the pilots and controllers knew.

On current evidence, the Japan Air Lines plane had been properly cleared to land on Runway 34R. It is possible the pilots in that Airbus cockpit did not see the small Coast Guard plane sitting on the runway until the very last instant, or perhaps at all.

How could this be? The runway lights were bright, at night, and could make it hard to see wingtip lights in unexpected locations; the Coast Guard plane was relatively small, in a runway environment packed with other blinking lights; the Airbus windshield would have been showing a “heads up display” of the landing path, which could obscure weak lights on the runway; the controller appears not to have cautioned the crew about previously departing traffic or other complications; etc.

Latest evidence suggests that controllers had intended the Coast Guard plane to taxi to the entry point for Runway 34R, but not onto the runway. This is a fundamental life-and-death distinction in aviation, with lots of language and procedures designed to underscore the difference. “Hold short” when you’re not supposed to enter the runway; “line up and wait” when you are cleared to enter the runway but not to take off; “cleared for takeoff” when it’s time to go.

At all airports I’ve ever seen, there are bright red signs to alert you that you’re about to turn onto a runway. Here is an example, courtesy of AOPA:

If you saw this you’d know three things. First, that you are on Taxiway G (yellow lettering, on black background). Second, that immediately ahead of you is Runway 10-28 (red background, with white lettering), with Runway 10 to your left and Runway 28 to your right. And third, that you damned well better know what you are doing before you move forward, into the red.¹

At many big commercial airports, like Haneda, there are also special flashing signals to alert crews when they’re about to take this fateful step.

Apparently the controller intended the Coast Guard plane to “hold short”—to taxi up to the runway, but stay clear of it. And for whatever reason, the Coast Guard crew apparently believed it had been told to “line up and wait.” (That is, to taxi onto the runway, and sit there until cleared to take off.) This will certainly be a center of investigation.

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3. Where can you look for more info?

-As mentioned yesterday, the PPrune site, a professional-pilot discussion zone, is full of info and opinions, some of which are wild speculation but many of which are useful. The enormous discussion thread starts here.

-The Aviation Herald site has very useful updates, and sobering photos and recordings.

-An absolutely astonishing YouTube video shows the tragedy as it occurs. If you look at this Haneda live-cam footage very, very carefully, starting at around time 2:40 you will see in the distance the tail lights of a small plane taxiing from right to left, toward its position on the runway. All evidence suggests that is the doomed Coast Guard plane. By around time 3:03 it stops, apparently on the runway, and you can still faintly see its tail lights. Around time 3:20, the descending Airbus comes into view, from the right. Over the next 20-plus seconds you will be thinking No! No! as it heads straight into the smaller, still barely visible Coast Guard plane. Then you will see the instant of impact and resulting fireball.

The video is here:

4. What is to be learned?

That process is just beginning. But one pilot-commentator on PPrune noted the JAL success in evacuating its passengers and said:

Perhaps future safety briefings need to be a lot more blunt:

”In Tokyo, everyone left their bags and stuff behind … and everyone got out alive.”

1. At a towered airport before moving you’d need to hear: “line up and wait” [go onto the runway but don’t take off]; “cleared for takeoff” [go onto the runway, and take off]; or “cross Runway 10-28” [go quickly across an active runway, to some other part of the air field]. At a nontowered airport, you’d need to look all around for planes on their way in or out.

As a reminder, every runway has two names, for opposite directions of flight. The two names have a difference of 18, for 180 magnetic degrees. Thus you’ll find Runway 9-27, or Runway 15-33. In Haneda’s case, the Japan Air Lines plane was landing on Runway 34 Right, into winds from the north. When Haneda’s winds are from the south and planes are landing in the opposite direction, that same stretch of pavement would be called Runway 16 Left.