On the afternoon of January 2, 2024, Japan Airlines flight JAL516 was involved in a collision accident while landing at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, and then the plane lost control and the wings and engines caught fire at the same time, and all 379 people, including the crew members, were safely evacuated within 18 minutes of the accident.
Subsequently, everything that happened on JAL516 was called a textbook rescue operation, the Haneda Miracle. Behind the miracle, what really happened, and whether it was really just a miracle – everything is worth exploring and remembering forever.
Crash plane
At around 4:15 p.m. on January 2, 2024, Japan Airlines flight JAL516 took off from New Chitose Airport in Sapporo, Hokkaido, and flew to Tokyo's Haneda Airport. The aircraft has a maximum passenger capacity of 390 passengers. On that day, it was the New Year's holiday, and the airliner was full of 367 passengers, including 8 infants, in addition to 12 crew members.
Akiko Yoshizawa, a student at the University of Tokyo, sat in the aisle seat in row 51 in economy class, near the back of the plane's right-wing engine. A few days ago, during the New Year's holiday, he returned to his parents' house in Sapporo for the New Year's holiday. At the end of the holiday, he chose to take flight JAL516 back to Tokyo, and he is about to graduate this year.
The flight was scheduled to depart at 3:50 p.m., but due to various reasons, it was delayed for nearly 30 minutes before finally taking off. During the 1 hour and 30 minutes of the flight, Yoshizawa was quietly reading, and there was no abnormal situation on the whole plane.
Yutaka Kamoda, who works for Japan's STV news agency and was among the passengers of the plane, recorded the entire flight of the day in a memo, and he confirmed Yoshizawa's account. Yutaka Kamoda's seat is located in the front row of the plane, on the aisle side. He recorded: The in-flight broadcast told me that it was the latest aircraft, and I looked around at the interior and design and felt that the whole journey was no different from a normal flight, and we were ready to land as usual. 」
At 5:47 p.m., JAL516 was about to land at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, and it was instructed by the tower to land on Runway C. At this time, it was already dark in Tokyo, and the only things that could be seen on the tarmac of Haneda Airport were the outline lights on the exterior walls of the buildings and the guiding lights on the runways. That's when the accident happened.
The moment the plane landed, Akiko Yoshizawa didn't know what was happening outside the cabin, he only saw an orange-red fireball burning outside the porthole, and the entire fuselage began to tilt to the right, and he heard the plane gurgling and vibrating. He subconsciously grabbed the armrests of the seat, and when I landed, I felt a force that lifted my ass out of the seat. 」
The real situation outside the cabin is that JAL516 collided with a Japan Coast Guard transport plane as it was preparing to take off while landing.
At that time, the JAL516 was still taxiing at a speed of 300 kilometers per hour after landing. After the two planes collided, the airliner quickly deviated from its trajectory and began to skid uncontrollably on the runway. After sliding forward for almost 1,500 meters, it stopped. The strong impact caused the wings and engines loaded with gasoline to start**, and at the same time, the transport plane was directly knocked into the air, igniting a large fire.
Flames and smoke continued to emerge from the windows of the fuselage, and the flames outside the network window became more and more intense, and the cabin was filled with thick smoke. Trapped in the cramped cabin, the passengers were in a commotion. The children cried and shouted, "God save us," and the passengers began to complain, "Why didn't you leave early?" If the flight had not been delayed, there would have been no accident. 」
At this point, Yoshizawa's legs began to tremble, and for the first time in my life, I seriously thought that I might die. Thinking of this, Yoshizawa was so frightened that he burst into tears in his seat.
Sitting next to Yoshizawa are 28-year-old Tsubasa Sawada and his girlfriend. The two of them had just returned from a vacation in Sapporo and were ready to go to work the next day. Seeing the flustered Yoshizawa, Tsubasa Sawada shouted to him, We will definitely be fine! As he spoke, he shook Yoshizawa's hand and gave him a mask.
Five minutes later, the flight attendants opened three life-saving doors, located on the left side of the tail, and the left and right ends of the nose, and opened the life-saving slides to guide passengers to evacuate from the slides.
In the end, 18 minutes after the accident, all 367 passengers and 12 crew members on JAL516, a total of 379 people, left the cabin safely on fire, 17 passengers reported abrasions, and no one died.
After the collision, the Japan Transportation Safety Commission, based on the monitoring of the airport and the preliminary analysis of the black boxes of the two planes, found that the main reason for the accident was that the transport plane intruded on the runway without permission.
The transport aircraft is a small propeller-type transport aircraft from the Japan Coast Guard. On January 1, 2024, Noto ** occurred in Japan, and the transport plane began a mission to deliver relief supplies to the air base in Niigata, and 24 hours before the accident, the aircraft had already flown two rescue missions in Tokyo and Nishiki.
According to Haneda Airport's tower recordings, the tower traffic commander referred to the transport plane as No. 1, implying that it was given the highest take-off priority, when the traffic commander instructed it to continue and enter the standby near the runway, but did not give instructions to allow takeoff.
The captain of the transport plane, Genki Miyamoto, emphasized in an investigation that he heard the command from the tower to allow takeoff, and then continued to move forward into the runway - there was a misunderstanding between the two sides, which eventually led to the collision of the two planes.
Video analysis of the accident shows that when JAL JAL516 was landing, the Security Agency transport plane suddenly appeared on runway C and broke the landing gear of the airliner. Due to the absence of the nose landing gear, the nose of the airliner rubbed directly against the ground, causing a fire.
According to the 2011 State of Global Aviation Safety issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), between 2005 and 2010, among the three types of high-risk accidents identified by ICAO, runway safety-related incidents (including bird strikes, ground collisions, runway deviations, runway incursions, loss of ground control, runway landings, runway landings, etc.) ranked first, and runway safety-related accidents accounted for 59% of the total accidents.
In an interview with JAL and the Japan Transportation Safety Board, the captain of JAL516 said that at the time of the incident, he only felt the plane sliding forward. We operated the brakes and steering wheel, but it didn't work, and the plane was completely out of control. 」
The wreckage of a JAL airliner after it burned down on the runway of an airport. Source: Visual ChinaEscape
On a passenger plane that had lost control, how could all 379 people be safely evacuated within 18 minutes, and no one died - in the unfortunate plane collision accident, this is also one of the most concerned concerns of countless people.
Through the ** taken by many passengers on board, people can see that in the dim and unknown emergency, the cabin is noisy at first, and people's doubts, children's cries, screams, and burning roars are mixed together. In this environment alone, several flight attendants remained calm at all times – the most basic prerequisite for everyone to be rescued.
At that time, because the communication lines on the plane were also cut off, the flight attendants could not directly communicate with the captain sitting in the cockpit and could not hear the captain's instructions. In the event of an emergency, flight attendants face tremendous responsibilities and pressures – on the one hand, according to the regulations, all staff on the passenger aircraft should follow the instructions of the captain; On the other hand, if you do not contact the captain and rush to open the emergency channel, there is a high probability that the fire will be introduced into the cabin at the moment of opening the door.
After checking the emergency aisle, the flight attendants chose to organize the evacuation of passengers as soon as possible without a response from the captain.
Izumi Egami, a former Japan Airlines flight attendant, said: "If the aircraft system is out of order and the captain cannot be contacted, we generally assume this situation during training and ensure that each flight attendant can judge and make decisions independently, and cannot wait forever because of the inability to communicate." 」
At this time, more than 5 minutes have passed since the accident, the plane has completely stopped, the fuselage has not yet burned completely, but the right engine is still in a state of spitting. After inspection, the flight attendants found that only three of the original eight emergency exits were available, located on both sides of the nose and the left rear, which were not yet **, and there was enough space on the ground to put down the slide. So, they decisively opened the three emergency doors, lowered the emergency slide, and began to guide passengers off the plane.
Due to the damage to the plane's PA system, flight attendants could only use loudspeakers and their own voices to shout commands, repeatedly emphasizing to passengers: Please cover your mouth and nose, please bend down and keep your posture low. 」
This choice of flight attendants and their subsequent operations have also been recognized by many aviation experts.
Chen Jianguo, a veteran captain who has worked for Japan Airlines for four years, analyzed in an article: If the crew chooses the wrong emergency exit, then passengers may suffer secondary injuries during evacuation. This shows that the judgment of the JAL crew is very accurate and does not panic in the face of danger. Aviation critic Yoshiaki Aoki also said that each crew member assessed the flames, selected a suitable emergency exit, and guided passengers correctly and appropriately. 」
According to public information, there were 3 pilots and 9 flight attendants on board the JAL516 passenger plane, among them, the captain was 50 years old, experienced in flying, and had more than 12,000 flight hours, while the 9 flight attendants were all women.
Four of the nine flight attendants are new employees who joined Japan Airlines in the spring of 2023. Afterwards, the chief flight attendant of the cabin crew said in an interview: I knew they must have been panicked and scared, but it turned out that they did a very good job. 」
In addition to the timely and correct operation of the flight attendants, the special material of the A350 itself also won as much escape time as possible for the passengers - according to the preliminary investigation of Japan Airlines, after the incident, the front of the nose was damaged, but the cockpit at the front of the aircraft was basically intact, which is also the special feature of the A350, unlike the old aircraft made of aluminum, the A350 is mainly made of carbon fiber composite materials, it is not only light and strong, when the aircraft **, Resin-impregnated composites also slow down the rate of combustion.
Japan Airlines Airbus A350 Image Source Visual China Of course, the most important factor in creating this "escape miracle" is every ordinary passenger who consciously abides by the principle of escape.
Although the cabin was noisy after landing, when the emergency door was successfully opened, no one rushed to the door at that moment. According to the records of passenger Yutaka Kamoda, at that time, the passengers closest to the exit began to evacuate, while the remaining passengers on the plane spontaneously and orderly got up in order of their seats.
Yoshizawa, who sat in the 51st row, recalled that during the whole process, the crew waved their arms sharply even when they squatted down, guided the passengers to the front, and continued to shine flashlights on the passengers' feet. 」
Yoshizawa found that the passengers around him not only did not panic and snatch the escape route, but also helped each other, and the passengers who first slid down the slide to escape did not leave, but helped the passengers who slid down the slide to land safely.
Throughout the evacuation process, the flight attendants kept repeating a few words: please take off your high heels, please do not carry luggage, please leave your carry-on luggage, and the passengers around you can follow the instructions of the flight attendants, which makes people feel less dangerous. Yoshizawa said.
During the evacuation process, the flight attendants kept reminding them not to carry luggage, source: Screenshot of ann news**.
After the collision, some Haneda Airport staff and passengers waiting for the flight recorded the evacuation of the passengers of flight JAL516 with **. A combing through these** reveals that of the 379 people who were safely evacuated, only one male passenger left the plane with his own backpack. All the rest of the passengers and staff did not carry any luggage.
Yoshizawa only took his wallet and mobile phone in his trouser pocket, as well as an English book at hand, and I left the computer I used to write ** during the winter vacation, and the bag containing the expensive cosmetics I bought. Later, Yoshizawa mentioned in an interview that for a moment, he thought about bringing his computer with him, because the graduation ** that had written the entire winter vacation was still in it. But in the end, he gave up, as long as he lived, he could continue to write. 」
Naoki Nakanishi, 44, and his brother's family of eight were on the plane after a vacation to Sapporo. During the evacuation, she and her husband were still wearing short sleeves, but they didn't take anything, and took their 3-year-old eldest son and 9-month-old second son to evacuate as soon as possible. Fortunately, at that time, her mobile phone and wallet were still in her pocket, while her brother's family did not even have a mobile phone.
The children's favorite frog doll is gone, the maternal and child health manual that they have always carried with them in case of sudden illness is also missing, and there is a small bag under their seat with house keys and a work computer ...... that stores all kinds of data and documentsIn the panic, Naoki Nakanishi still decided to discard these, and she felt a little pity, but I still felt that it was good to be alive. Naoki Naoki Nakanishi said.
In the aftermath, some aviation experts believe that the ability to persuade passengers to abandon their luggage is partly related to the quality of the passengers themselves, and on the other hand, it is also a reflection of the ability of the crew (crew and cabin crew) to control the cabin.
According to Ann, after the passengers had largely fled, the captain who left the cockpit went to the rear of the cabin and lined up with a row of seats to see if there were any passengers who had not escaped. Seeing that there were still a few passengers in the seats, he guided them to the safe passage and confirmed that all the personnel had left, and the captain was the last to leave the aircraft through the safe passage in the rear cabin.
At 18:05 in the evening of the same day, all 379 crew members on JAL516 had landed safely - it took a total of 18 minutes from the collision incident to the evacuation of all members.
The evacuated passengers were also properly accommodated, and they were first placed in an open grass dozens of meters away from the plane. In order to make it easier to record the number of people, the flight attendant instructed the passengers to form a circle with 10 people holding hands, and then squatted. At around 7 o'clock in the evening, shuttle buses came to the tarmac one after another and carried passengers to the departure hall of the terminal. Here, Japan Airlines staff handed out brioche bread, rice balls, cashmere sweaters and warm stickers to passengers, and handed them paper so they could leave their addresses, names, and luggage information. Several medical personnel came to the passengers and asked about their physical condition, accompanied by interpreters.
By 9:30 p.m., almost all the passengers had left the airport, and 14 of the injured were taken to the hospital.
After returning to the airport safely, Yoshizawa posted a lot of crying emojis in the family group of the line, and told the family that he was safe, and a few days after the incident, Yoshizawa still had palpitations, This is the first time I have been so close to death, and it is good to be alive. 」
18 minutes later, all 379 crew members on flight JAL516 were evacuated Screenshot from ann news**It's a matter of life and death
After the collision accident, the first picture of the orderly evacuation of passengers has sparked active discussions around the world - it has been proved that in the face of unavoidable aviation accidents, orderly and rational evacuation is the most important way to escape.
In addition to the crisis encountered by JAL516 this time, there are also cases in the past that truly prove this.
At 9:23 a.m. on August 20, 2007, China Airlines Flight CI120 took off from Taipei Taoyuan Airport to Naha Airport in Okinawa, Japan. On that day, the plane carried a total of 157 passengers and eight crew members, including two infants and more than a dozen children, as well as a passenger Su Wenfa, who had recently suffered a fracture in his right leg.
The tour guide, Lin Jiaren, and the 19 people in the tour group also sat on the plane, and it was the peak tourist season, and the tourists couldn't wait to start the journey.
Lin Jiaren's seat number is 6k, the location is just at the junction of economy class and business class, after the plane stopped, Lin Jiaren smelled a burning smell, but he didn't care too much, but he didn't expect that after about 30 seconds, a scream came from the back of the cabin: *! It's smoking! At this time, Lin Jiaren turned his head and found that the No. 2 engine on the right wing of the plane was burning, and thick smoke was emitting.
China Airlines Flight CI120**Image source network At this time, the crew was still performing the final inspection process of shutting down the engine, and the fire alarm in the cockpit sounded. At the same time, the ground crew outside the aircraft told the pilot the wings on both sides of the aircraft through the intercom**. After noticing the situation at the scene, the captain of the plane, Yu Jianguo, immediately ordered the passengers and crew members to evacuate.
Smoke had begun to spread into the cabin, and the portholes in the cabin began to shatter from the heat. After receiving the captain's instructions, the six flight attendants opened the four emergency hatches in the front and rear, as well as the corresponding inflatable slides, within 20 seconds, and began to instruct the passengers to abandon their luggage, take off their high heels, and organize them to escape in order.
Because the passengers strictly followed the escape rules and obeyed the command of the flight attendant throughout the process, the entire escape process took less than two minutes, and Su Wenfa, who had a broken right leg, was helped by an American passenger named Jim Caruso and escaped smoothly.
Finally, after the captain You Jianguo repeatedly confirmed that all passengers had been safely evacuated from the escape slide, he jumped out of the cockpit at the front with the co-pilot.
Some passengers recalled that just a few seconds after the captain and co-pilot jumped out of the cockpit window, the first big ** occurred in the middle of the passenger plane, and then the fire and smoke caused by it became more violent, and the continuous ** made the fuselage fold into three sections. The tail section of the fuselage was deformed in the burning of the fire and broke on the ground.
Later, the investigation team found that the cause of the accident was that a bolt punctured the fuel tank, which in turn caused an oil leak**. But at that time, the quick decision of the captain, the calm command of the crew members, and the help of the passengers finally allowed all 165 people on the plane to escape.
Afterwards, the 48-year-old captain You Jianguo said in an interview: I would like to thank the passengers on the plane for their calm cooperation, because as long as there is a delay on the part of any person, this will not be the case. 」
In stark contrast to this case, another flight** accident occurred in Russia 12 years later.
On May 5, 2019, Aeroflot flight SU1492 flew from Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport to Murmansk Airport, the plane was struck by lightning after takeoff, after that, the plane was forced to return to Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport, during the emergency landing, flames erupted from the bottom of the aircraft, and within seconds, flames raged in the rear of the aircraft model Sukhoi SSJ100, and the entire plane bounced off the runway.
At that time, there were 78 passengers (including the crew) on the plane, of whom 41 were killed in the accident. Almost a year later, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation published the results of its investigation, which concluded that there was no technical malfunction of the wrecked plane, and that the cause of the accident was an operational error by the captain.
Mikhail Savchenko was a survivor of the accident, and after escaping from the emergency channel, he filmed a video on the tarmac and subsequently posted it on social networks. According to this**and others**, some people counted that at the peak of the first wave of evacuations, 18 of the 28 passengers who came down within 37 seconds were carrying luggage and backpacks, and some of them had bulky trolley suitcases. 」
Therefore, after the Russian air crash, it also triggered a discussion about whether carrying luggage during escape is a kind of homicide, and in this regard, as a survivor, Savchenko's attitude is: I don't know what to say to those who run out with their luggage, only God is their judge. At that time, there were also voices saying that because the fire was too big, even if some passengers did not escape with luggage, it would be difficult for passengers in the back of the cabin to be rescued.
William McGee, a veteran aviation administrator, later commented: "Passengers stopping to pick up their luggage during an evacuation can be a matter of life and death for themselves and others around them." 」
As early as 2000, the National Transportation Safety Board of the United States issued a safety report, which counted 46 cases of air evacuation, and interviewed 36 flight attendants, of which 24 flight attendants said that in critical situations, passengers leaving the plane with carry-on luggage are the most common evacuation obstacles, and there are always passengers who insist on evacuating with guitars, crutches and boxes, and they have heated arguments with flight attendants for this are common phenomena.
Reports from those on board indicate that the evacuation process is likely to be slowed down by passengers snatching their luggage. In a statement, the FAA said, "We never know if more lives could have been saved if these bags had been left on the plane." 」
At the airport, there was a tribute to the crashed flight SU1492. Source: Visual China
It's not a miracle, it's still an accident
After the JAL 516 collision, almost all the passengers interviewed had the same statement: I think it's a miracle that I survived. A Japanese television news anchor called the entire escape process a textbook rescue operation, saying: "Remember Noto, we must also remember the miracle of Haneda." 」
But in the history of aviation accidents, a famous captain has a different understanding of the word "miracle".
On January 15, 2009, just one minute after takeoff, US Airways Flight 1549 encountered a bird strike 50 meters above Manhattan, causing both engines to stall at the same time. Subsequently, the tower issued an order to return to a nearby airport, but the plane had completely lost power and could not reach the nearby airport, and at the moment of crisis, Captain Sullenberg chose to land on the Hudson River at his own discretion, and in the end, all 155 people on board, including flight attendants, survived.
For a long time after that, the story of Flight 1549 was also known as "The Miracle", and the famous director Clint Eastwood also brought the story to the big screen, named "Captain Sully", starring Oscar winner Tom Hanks.
Photo source movie "Captain Sully" But in reality, Captain Sullenberg said to **: Please don't call it a miracle, daily training can improve safety and accuracy, and when you call these miracles, everything becomes a fluke. 」
On the other side of the JAL 516 collision accident, 379 people miraculously escaped, and the transport plane encountered a major number of personnel**, at that time, the plane was carrying six crew members, including the captain and the first officer, and in the end, only one captain survived, and the remaining five people were all killed.
The youngest of the victims was a radio operator, Tsusunori Ishida, 27 years old who got engaged just last year. The oldest is the mechanic Shigesuke Kato, 56 years old, an experienced maintenance worker who, at a young age, memorized dozens of repair manuals. The team members who knew them well said that several team members used to rent an apartment together, and their common hobby was diving, and they would talk about the sea they had been to in the room after work.
Genki Miyamoto, the only surviving captain, is 39 years old and has been assigned to Haneda Air Base since April 2019 and has been serving as a captain for 4 years and 11 months. In the hospital where he was taken to, he kept repeating "I'm sorry".
In addition, JAL also confirmed that the economic loss caused by the collision accident was as high as 15 billion yen (about 7.).500 million RMB).
For Japan, and even the world's aviation community, the thrilling escape that happened on the JAL516 should not be praised only as a miracle, its greatest value is still to be remembered forever as an accident, so as to avoid a similar accident from happening again - this is also the bloody lesson brought by the JAL123 air crash.
On the afternoon of August 12, 1985, Japan Airlines Flight JAL123 was flying from Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan, to Itami Airport in Osaka, carrying 509 passengers and 15 crew members.
Twelve minutes after takeoff, the plane suddenly made a loud noise, the ceiling of the rear toilet collapsed, and the hydraulic system in the plane also failed. At 18:56 on August 12, 1985, the plane crashed on Mt. Takamagahara near the Misutaka Mountains in Gunma Prefecture, killing 520 people, including 11 minors, as well as Haruko Kitahara, a famous actor of the Japanese Takarazuka Theater Company, Ikuo Urakami, executive director of the Japanese company Good Waiter Foods, and well-known singer Ku Sakamoto.
In the history of world civil aviation, this is also the largest number of casualties among accidents involving a single aircraft.
After the air crash, many of the victims' families in grief, in addition to grief, established an organization called the 812 Liaison Association, after their years of running, in April 2006, Japan established the Aviation Safety Enlightenment Center, the JAL123 plane crash investigation materials and reports to the public, in addition, the center also permanently preserves and displays a part of the wreckage of the accident body, as well as the flattened passenger plane seats. In order to remember the crash, Japan Airlines also organizes the company's top management to climb Mt. Misuke on August 12 every year to pay respects to the victims of the accident.
Izumi Egami joined Japan Airlines in 2000 and was taught by flight attendants who survived the JAL123 crash. She once said to Izumi Egami, "After the plane crash, for a long time, I couldn't get rid of the fear in my heart, and I wanted to quit my job as a flight attendant, but I always felt that I should pass on this experience and lessons to future generations and make it my mission." 」
According to Izumi Egami, after the JAL123 crash, JAL will organize a large-scale evacuation training for pilots and flight attendants every year, and flight attendants who fail to pass the written and practical exams will be suspended.
A JAL employee revealed in an interview that the training for new flight attendants lasts for four months. During the training, they will conduct in-depth drills on basic etiquette, English learning, emergency response and other courses. During the training, instructors will conduct rescue drills for various emergencies, including bird strikes, navigation fires, runway collisions, etc. Emergency evacuation drills are the most difficult and tense, we will practice English emergency announcements, and there will be a tutor who will correct our pronunciation word by word. 」
During the training process, some newcomers do not move properly, and they will immediately be severely criticized by the instructor: If this was a real accident, the passenger would have died long ago. Do you understand how heavy it is to take control of your life? 」
All the crew survived the JAL516 crash, and Braithwaite, a professor of safety and accident investigation at Cranfield University in the UK, praised the efforts of all the crew members. He said it was the blood of 520 people in exchange for the operating procedure.
After the accident, according to a protective order from the National Transportation Safety Board of Japan, the wreckage of JAL516 will be stored in a hangar, and some of the wreckage will be used for public display in the future, with the aim of conveying the lessons of the accident to the public and aviation practitioners and raising safety awareness.
Can these memorials really serve as a warning and reduce the occurrence of accidents?
In this regard, Mr. Yotaro Hatakemura, a professor at the University of Tokyo, once gave the example of a boy who died in March 2004 after being caught in the revolving door of Roppongi Hills in Tokyo. After the incident, Yotaro Hatakemura was grateful for the loss of a small life, and a number of public safety professors jointly proposed that the revolving door and the dummy doll in the accident be put on public display.
Yotaro Hatamura believes that preserving the objects involved in the accident is also preserving a certain kind of painful memory – once the physical object of the accident disappears, people forget the accident itself, and the memory disappears with it. The revolving door and dummy puppet that caused the accident are dynamically preserved, so that the accident can circulate and life can circulate. Yotaro Hatakemura said: If failure cannot be treated as a property of society and utilized, then it will happen again. 」