A Japan Airlines plane burst into flames after colliding with a Japan Coast Guard aircraft while landing at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Tuesday evening.
The airline said that all 367 passengers and 12 crew members on its plane were safely evacuated, according to NHK, the public broadcaster. Five crew members on the Coast Guard plane were killed, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said during a news conference.
The Coast Guard members had been en route to deliver supplies to the region affected by the powerful earthquake that struck western Japan on Monday, Mr. Kishida said.
“They were filled with a determined sense of mission, and it is extremely regrettable and distressing what has happened to them,” the prime minister said. “I express my profound condolences to their surviving families.”
Mr. Kishida added that government ministries would work to ensure that the crash did “not affect relief efforts” after the earthquake, which killed at least 48 people.
Footage aired by NHK showed the Japan Airlines plane on fire as it streaked across a runway. The broadcaster reported that the plane, Flight 516, had departed New Chitose Airport in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido and was scheduled to land at Haneda at 5:40 p.m.
Live footage after 6 p.m. showed firefighters trying to douse flames pouring out of the plane, an Airbus A350-900.
The Coast Guard plane involved in the collision was a fixed-wing MA722, according to Naoko Kobayashi, a Coast Guard representative.
