Haneda Accident | AIRPORT ANIMATION + RAW AUDIO + TRANSCRIPT 

New Update on the Tokyo Haneda accident. After the incredible amount of comments in the previous 2 videos, I have edited a VASAviation style video incuding the airport animation now that the aircraft positions are a bit more clarified after 3 days since the accident. Hope this throws light to some doubts that I have read amongst thousands of comments. Anyway, the investigation is ongoing and more information will be officially released. A new information released that an airport NOTAM reported the STOP BAR for runway 34R on Intersection C5 was out of service. VASAviation will be following the investigation very closely and will update the video descriptions, pinned comments or making new videos if considered necessary for the audience. The point of any aviation investigation is to avoid future similar incidents or accidents so does this channel as well sharing the procedure and the results. Thank you.

I'll be very interested to find out what the coastguard pilot and co-pilot's workload had been in the preceding hours and days.

RIP to the 5 who died, but it was really a miracle that this didn't turn worse.

As a former Flight Attendant for TWA 50 years ago somebody has to say kudos to the Cabin Crew. NO PASSENGER DEATHS WITH 300+ ON BOARD. Despite fire all around this crew did heroic work. Way to Go!!!

For the A350 to have possibly ran over the C8 and still remain relatively intact is truly a testament to the engineering and size comparison I think.

It is incredibly sad to know these people are the ones who were going to help out those affected by the earthquake. My deep condolences.

Coast guard’s plane was cleared to hold 34R at C5, as #1 priority to enter runway,, he was never cleared to enter the runway… sad they even read back the whole instructions, even saying hold at C5…. Absolutely avoidable accident, may his crew RIP!!

One sad detail seems to be that the coast guard plane MA722/Mizunagi was the only plane that survived the tsunami at Sendai Airport in 2011. So it was seen as somewhat of a symbol of resilience and reconstruction since then.

Still amazed that everyone aboard the JAL A350-900 evacuated alive.

Its amazing anyone survived. I first thought the A350 had only clipped the C8 on its side but it hit it square on. The composite fuselage really held together and seemed to resist the fire better than aluminium.

What is most impressive is the modern slides. They are able to withstand heat for so much longer.

according to japanese news: 1) coast guard plane had no clearance to enter runway. this was also read back by JCG pilots 2) Haneda has a runway incursion detection system in the tower. if a airplane enters a runway the runway on the screen turns yellow. the controller in the tower seems to have missed that warning 3) Stop bar lights are not used during good visibility at Haneda. Now you can discuss if night /darkness counts as low/bad visibility or not. but NOTAM states that they where out of service. so the pilot should have known and take special attention. 4) the Coast guard pilot in his newest statement says he is sure that he got clearance to enter and was just starting to accelerate and take off when they got hit seems like the holes in the swiss cheese start to lineup....

I've done quite a few night landings at an international airport (many years ago) and you can hardly see anything. You can't see other aircraft in the air, only their red and green wingtip lights. Between the lights, it's totally dark. An aircraft parked on a runway is not that easy to see either if you are coming from behind. The red and green lights are there, but they are pretty easily confused with the runway and taxi lights. May the victims RIP and the surviving pilot help with the investigation. Really sad

Rip to the 5 cost guard members who passed away while serving their country and the victims affected by the earthquakes 🙏🏽🙏🏽

Accidents that cost lives are always sad. But it seems to sting a little worse when it involves people that were engaged in rescue/relief operations for the Earthquake victims.

Thank you for putting this together and sharing it with other creators for discussion and review! I really appreciate your efforts :)

Thank you for these updates on this tragedy. I am horrified that, despite proper readback, the captain of the Coast Guard Dash-8 did not hold at C5 and, instead, proceeded onto the runway. My thoughts are with his deceased colleagues and those injured during the evacuation of the A350. I sincerely hope they are able to get the full story out of the Coast Guard captain.

I have tremendous gratefulness for the channel and the hard work done on this video, and many, many prior times. I would suggest a tweak to the tantalizing color coding used here with multiple aircraft. Starting at 0:50 I was confused trying to match crafts with colors and captions. Possible improvements: every 722 transmission in pink, BOTH incoming and outgoing; every primary approach craft's in blue; and so forth. Or, simpler, or in addition, a small 722 symbol, 516 symbol, 166 symbol.

Gratuitous comment for Victor's channel stats at VASAviation. Remarkable animation as usual.

My guess is the pilot in the coast guard plane was experiencing "Expectation Bias" which is very common amongst us pilots during very stressful days of work...He might have just heard "line up and wait" and thought well, "I'm the first guy in here so he's probably talking about me" I just wished he'd have had someone beside him who was paying attention. very preventable but not uncommon

From some pictures of the A350, I think the front wheel hasn’t touch down yet. The nose cone of 350 has the T that looks like it struck the high T tail of the dash 8 squarely. That means the belly of 350 was slightly raised at an angle. Once the T tail was taken out the belly of 350 just crushed down on the dash 8. Both engine cowlings of 350 have a straight cut indicating the engines took out the wings of dash 8, (or push them). 350 kind of belly flopped at an angle onto the dash 8.

Before anyone comments, it’s now standard practice that once a seriously burning aircraft has been evacuated to just let it burn, as it’s futile to try to extinguish the flames and is very dangerous for the firefighters. This is especially true on landing aircraft with low fuel. They might approach an accident aircraft on takeoff roll differently, but only to stop aviation fuel from spreading too far.

This incident is remarkably similar to something that happened at LAX on Feb 1, 1991. A Skywest Fairchild Metroliner was cleared onto the runway and to some extent forgotten about. Meanwhile an USAir B737-300 was cleared to land on the same runway. The Metroliner did not have its strobes on and was lost in the runway lighting. The 737 crashed into the Metroliner. All 12 on the Metroliner and 23 aboard the 737 were lost. Watch "Mayday" episode Cleared for Disaster.

It's sad that nobody spotted the error. My heart breaks for the lost crewmen. Prayers from the US.

Condolences to all involved... terrible tragedy to be a victim rushing to help other victims... this earthquake has taken a heavy toll...🇺🇸🇺🇸🇯🇵🇯🇵

Airbus A350’s advanced engineering and innovative design reflects a commitment to incredible performance and safety. The composite fuselage integrity performed remarkably. Well done Airbus!

Can't imagine what it looked like for JAL166 before and during the go around....

Thank you VASA for uploading high quality content, hopefully will not happen those accidents again

Thank you for your animation. Thank you for showing the C5 location in the animation. Yesterday, I have already posted in some blogs about the (A) and (B) below. (A) the coastal guard plane's pilot did not see the C5 sign. (B) in an international airport, the coastal guard plane's pilot does not have excellent communication ability in English. In Japan, Coast Guard is to protect the coastline. That means the personnels are navally or militarily trained. Of course, Japan navy and military are trained mainly in Japanese. They use Japanese in their communication mainly. For example, China's airforce/army people communicate in Chinese. Russia's army talks in Russian in their practices. Because of the above, the pilot of JA722A (coast guard plane) did not have good understanding of the instructions from the controlling tower's officials. Right now, the possibility of the Coast Guard pilot didn't see the C5 sign still holds. By the animation and and the diagram of the animation by VASAviation here, how can a pilot approaching that way knows that around 100 meters more of rolling the plane before left turning to reach C5 holding point? As for the passenger plane, JAL 516, it is possible that the 3 pilots could not notice the stationary Coast Guard plane. It is because that there are 5 lines of lights at the landing spot of the runway. These lights may confuse with the Coast Guard plane’s rear lights. The saying of 5 lines of lights at the spot of plane landing of the runny way of Haneda Airport can be verified by watching the video using the link below. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lbmHIwNSoi8.html Clearly in the video, from 5:54 to around 6:55, there are 5 lines of light. Then, there are only 3 lines of light after that. Are there ground radars at the airport? Still, the officials at the controlling tower may not notice a plane (the Coast Guard plane) has entered the runway in a short time of 40 seconds as they are busy all the time. Furthermore, regarding the leaving of the main pilot of the JAL 516, reportedly he was the last person leaving the plane 18 minutes after the 2 planes crashed. Eighteen minutes period is rather long. So, would VASAviation compose a timeline as to when the first door and slide deployed etc after the crash? Thank!

This video gave more context to what happened. As JAL166 was on app behind JAL516, and the TWR said “continue the app, we have a DEP” and also gave JAA722A the information that he was “number 1” could have the subliminar idea that he was cleared…. As every accident is a sum of factors, there are allways lessons

Great presentations sir, very much appreciate what you do. Thank You!

0:59 Clear order to LA722A "taxi to holding C5", meaning to STOP at C5. The JA722A repeated the order correctly. Waiting for an answer to the question: 43 sec and no one saw the plane waiting on 34R.

Τhe most likely scenario is that the sole survivor of the Dash 8, its Captain, made the fatar mistake to enter the runway, based on his expectation bias....

Love your channel. Can’t even watch b/c my hair stands on end. What I wouldn’t give to be a materials scientist right now.

No.1 Thanks

The Dash 8 is a pretty large aircraft. Amazing that the A350 didn't sustain more damage or go in to some sort of roll. Miracle. RIP to the 5 who died.

DAL276 mentioned in the ATC transcript releaeed two days ago (which is missing from this reconstruction) were approaching or already holding at C1 when the collision occurred. They likely had a very good view point on how this unfolded and the crew's testimony could be valuable.

information you provide is so vital. thank you

I'm looking forward to what the final report says when it comes be interesting to know why this happened.

Five Specialist and the pilot who was severely injured were all very skilled and very ✖️permanent ◎ Prominent Who were of highest integrity I hear. Rest in peace and may the left families and loved ones Take it well, and receive enough Honor and condolences money.

1:00 into it they actually read back to taxi to hold point C5. damn, that was 100% the pilots fault. they were told to taxi to holding point C5, they read it back and then go onto the active runway just because. sad sad sad

Excellent job, Victor. This clarifies much, and actually pretty much holds with the things I was able to learn over the past few days & posted about. Everyone tries to throw out their ideas on what happened, and speculations- the mass majority NEVER do this out of malice, but out of a genuine concern, as to how in the hell something like this could have happened, so that next, we can begin to toss out SOLUTIONS- so something like this might never happen again. NO, we are not the "authorities". That should be blatantly obvious- we're concerned citizens, enthusiasts, AARF, ATC's, Private & Commercial Pilots. You trolls who come on here to attack posters as some kind of, "threat" to the safety of, say, the Captain who made the mistake, to the point that we'd be putting his "live in danger", or suggesting "suicide"? I'm gonna destroy you... with words. Imma call you out. Imma embarrass the living hell out of you. And I'm going to make you appear, as exactly what you are- A threat to innocent people. I'm not gonna play games with you, and I'm NEVER gonna be intimidated by your idiocy. Not only will I defend my own posts? But those who are also posting as they should, and always do. But above all, I'll be here defending Victor, and other channels who cover all this information. So if y'all think you're gonna harm or shutdown people or channels? Good Luck. (Felt I needed to address some of the idiocy I saw over the past few days Victor. If you feel this post isn't something you want on your channel? Please, feel free to delete it, with ZERO hard feelings, whatsoever.)

Those pilots remained unbelievably calm. Props to them

It seems to me that the Dash 8 pilot thought that the Tower was talking to a departing flight instead of one approaching and went out onto the runway expecting to to the next departure. I'm an old Boatswains Mate and am familiar with Radio Chatter at Sea so I may be on to something here . Somebody got lost in the jumble of words . And I also DIDN'T hear more instructions from Ground Control .

Lots of talk about the stop bars. As mentioned in another comment, and as per AIP Japan, stop bars at Haneda only used in certain vis/RVR conditions. Also as per AIP, when weather conditions are such that stop bars are in use, departures from C3 to C12 (these stop bars are not controlled by the tower) are not available. But let’s not forget that stop bars are not the only holding point lighting. AIP states runway holding position lights and runway guard lights. There is a comment that the guard lights turn on in the daytime regardless of weather conditions, and no mention of night time operations. So perhaps these are off for HN operations. In any case, there are at least holding position lights operative at night.

Not the first time I've seen this happen (different airport, somewhere in the U.S., IIRC). The diagnosis I heard last time was markings on the tarmac were unclear/confusing, and caused commuter pilot to mistake runway for a taxiway. They sat and waited for further instructions, and then got rammed by a commercial jet, either taking off, or coming in for landing.

Reminds me of the accident years ago at LAX between a USAir 737 and a metro liner. Nearly identical

That is a long time idling on the runway for either the tower or the landing aircraft not to notice the error

Finally a detailed report

1:50 omg you can hear JAL166 pilot holding back tears relaying that message, the view from their POV must have been insane.

Thanks for this video. After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, we could only obtain information about where the radiation leaked from the nuclear power plant was spreading from foreign reports. The situation is exactly the same this time. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, which has jurisdiction over Haneda Airport, seems to want to pull the curtain back on the incident with little investigation, claiming that the captain of the Japan Coast Guard made an error in judgment. It is rare to see the information we see and hear here on Japanese TV. It is shameful as a Japanese person.

Just imagine what would have happened if the coast guard plane was 100m further on the runway.

It'll be interesting to see what changes are made to the airport and beyond due to this accident. It seems so avoidable if anyone or system would have noticed the potential collision.

Tower's transmission to 722A at 0:58 did get recorded on LiveATC. Check around 15 minutes 12 seconds.

The main reason for the use of AM and NOT FM is that FM has the capture effect. If someone is already talking on FM, the third party cannot jump in during other conversation to declear "EMERGENCY" or "MAYDAY". Depend on the FM signal strength, the receiver only picks up the strongest signal. However, AM can have other jump in during the call and still be able to hear enough to give priority to the "MAYDAY" caller.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but does Haneda not have a Ground Radar? How could the tower not notice that JA722A was on the runway for 43 seconds?

Until we get the cockpit voice recording from the coastguard plane, it's difficult to make any guesses. In a scenario such as this, there's not generally a single failure, there are several.

I am so impressed that the passenger plane had any survivors much less all of them. Its a tragedy that the coastguard lost the 5 members but this should have been so much worse. RIP

That ATC comment "we have a departure" may have confused the coast guard pilot (thinking he was the departure)

I understand the stop bar lights were inoperable on these taxiways. Considering that the Dash 8 just sat on the runway for over 40 seconds, I wonder if they confused the C taxi lanes and thought they were on the C 5B which is just to the left, curves and is a bit longer. They may have thought they were holding short.

Even though the readback from JA722A is correct (taxi to holding point C5), if they overheard the tower saying "we have departure" to landing traffic, I believe it could possibly misled them, as the number 1 departing aircraft, to have priority before anyone else... What really baffled me is how they lineup and waited for 40 seconds and not caught by the tower controller?

That’s just crazy. When i first heard about the accident and saw the dark video, i thought a portion of the Dash 8 was protruding on the runway. Now we know it was just sitting there, lined up, and took a direct hit. Could not have been worse. Horrible.

that must have sounded terrifying sitting on either plane, just loud metal crunching and an insane jolt

Sitting position and waiting for 43 seconds without asking ATC wtf is going on is inconceivable.

isnt there supposed to be some sort of system to detect runway incursion and potential conflicts?

You can really see that "Swiss Cheese" accident model here... So many holes that line up. Nobody involved was speaking their first language. A taxi instruction was misunderstood. A runway incursion happened. The controllers, tower and ground, both missed it. The landing pilots didn't see it and missed/misinterpreted any automated warnings they got. There will be more holes in between, but let's do what the aviation community does, what got aviation to be the safest form of transportation: Mourn, but also learn the lessons, because carrying those lessons forward is the best way to honor the memory of those lost.

Last November, I attended a reunion of Sky Creation, a Japanese-owned flight school under FAA. It was held at a restaurant in the building of RJTT T1, called Big Bird, which provides visual access to the runway 34L-16R. I have several opinions, but this time I express just this. I do hope that NO crews on JA722A are guilty, or legally judged responsible.

The A350 likely was in its flare, nose up and couldn’t have seen the Dash 8. A perfect storm of events. Like Blanco said, all the holes in the Swiss cheese lined up for something bad to slip through. And, a lot of people on different channels have been predicting a ground accident was imminent. Tragic and could’ve been worse. I wonder how many countries’ pilots have trouble understanding different countries’ accents?

Its remarkable that the crew and passengers all survived! Credit to the crew for getting everyone out! That must have been pure chaos!

Lots to go over here in the way of what caused the crash. But come the end of it, the cabin crew absolutely ruled in getting that Airbus evacuated and no more lives lost. Bravo to their professionalism and training.

I thoroughly enjoyed your use of shadows to show the altitude of JAL516 as it came in. 👌

The coast Guard repeated in a good way the readback...so.. Situational Awarness was lost from the coast guard crew ? Was there any distraction ?

Going off of the information that has become available, it would seem as if the Dash 8 crew was to blame for the incident. I'm not sure whether the captain was lucky or unlucky to have survived the crash.

And I thought American ATC spoke fast.

Remembering Tenerife, it’s crazy how all passengers and crew from the A350 were able to disembark.

Yes, sad about the crew who didn’t make it. While they didn’t hold short, I didn’t realize that they had fully gone onto the runway and had been waiting over 40 seconds there. I’m wondering how often ATC’s usually look at the runways or do they not do that very often? Although they didn’t follow the instructions they read back, I’m wondering if a more assertive sounding controller might have helped the possibly tired pilot from making this mistake. I’d love to hear from anyone here who might be a pilot or expert about your thoughts on this part of it.

Silly question but if there's no recording, how do they know what was said? (I know the transcript was released by the authorities, but where do they get it from?)

Audio for "taxi to holding point C5" is available.

Do they not have runway incursion warning system?

Exterior of plane seemed fire proof until it wasn’t, amazing engineering and advanced technology on the materials of todays planes👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

It will be good to see if any new regulations come out of this unfortunate accident. In airports that have no radar to for ATC to see the planes on the ground, would it be extreme to both require stop bars, and that they be functional? (You can mitigate downtime with redundancy -- perhaps keeping a backup stop bar available should one go offline)

We love Japanese people. Respect from Bangladesh.

It explains the cuts in the inboard sides of both of the Airbus engines. It looks like its mains might have touched and the nose gear close to the ground.

The Japan coast guard pilot is likely suffered from fatigue that caused misjudgment of the communication with ATC. According to Reuter report, it was the third trip of disaster relief for the team within 24 hours for the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Ishikawa prefecture in west Japan in less than 24 hours ago. It must be very stressful for the coast guard to handle the relief. When the team returned to the Haneda base, the plane may just reloaded and replenished with fuel and supplies, than take off again as they were running for time for the relief. Given Japan is infamous for the death of overwork, and the sense of urgency and mission of the crew.

How on earth did everyone evacuate and survive after a fireball like that. Wow.

I’m confused at 0:48 did t the tower say “Japan Air 131, runway 05 at D2, line up and wait”. It didn’t say hold at D2 and it said line up and wait which I thought means they could line up on the runway?

So sad. Hate loss of life. Grateful many lives saved.

So tragic. I wonder why only now we are seeing video cameras at airports. I asked a neighbor of mine who's an air traffic controller 28 years ago why they didn't have them in the US and he didn't know.

The tower never look at runway in normal operations? is insane to think they stay there for 40 seconds..

43 seconds!? how did they missed the plane just standing there in the runway

Yea, I think the Coast Guard pilot thought holding point C5 meant line up and wait, which it does not! "Holding point C5" is the ICAO way of saying "holdshort Runway 34R at C5."

Crazy accident

Maybe dumb question but why there wasn’t a “trafic” alert ?

43 seconds ??? That's very long in this case😭

The comms is so muffled it baffles me how they can effectively communicate such precise instructions without constantly fking up

Similar accident that involved in 1990 or 91, a USair B 737 and a Skywest Metroliner in LAX, with the 737 on final and the Metroliner lined up on the runway.

Two things I can think off could have prevented this: 1. Haneda should have ground warning radar (which can be IN-OP on the day, or it might not have due to it's part military nature) 2. The Japan Coast Guard plane should have turned on it's Landing lights. (The strobes and NAV lights can blend into airport lights, while the flood lights of the Landing Lights are almost impossible to be mistaken... It should be standard procedure to turn the landing lights on when lining-up for take-off. But from the A350 pilots' testimony, they didn't see anything until moment before impact, so I assume the Japan Coast Guard‘s plane didn't turn their landing lights on... Regardless this shouldn't happened and very preventable...RIP to the Japan Coast Guards and hope the captain can recover from this...

so you telling me they basically landed on the aircraft

I fly a 1995 hawker 800 and even this plane has TCAS and would have alerted me of a plane on the runway, and if not we have 2 iPads and an iPhone on board with Foreflight.... The dash 8 is entirely to blame, but the fact that the a350 didn't see them and the plane didn't issue any alert, I find it amazing... That Dash had to have the transponder off, the lights off and the crew of the 350 must been super tired not to have noticed the other aircraft.... Anyway we were not there and can not judge them.... RIP..

Why is the audio missing at 0:58 when HND Tower states "Taxi to holding point C5". The last audio is "Line up and wait"