Five crew members in a coastguard plane have died after it collided with a passenger jet carrying hundreds of people at Japan's Tokyo Haneda airport on Tuesday.
All 367 passengers and 12 crew on board the Japan Airlines passenger plane miraculously evacuated.
However five members of crew on board the smaller coastguard aircraft died in the crash, Japan's Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito confirmed.
The captain of the aircraft, a Bombardier-built Dash-8 maritime patrol plane, was injured but managed to escape.
The coastguard plane had been on the way to Niigata Airport base on Japan's west coast, to deliver aid to those caught up in a powerful earthquake that struck on New Year's Day, killing at least 48 people.
Live footage broadcast by news outlet NHK showed the Japan Airlines plane bursting into flames shortly after it landed on the runway in Tokyo shortly before 6pm.
Video: a JAL plane caught fire while landing at Tokyo's Haneda Airport this evening. Fire crews are on scene trying to extinguish the blaze. pic.twitter.com/YCVB4tPMRL
— Jeffrey J. Hall 🇯🇵🇺🇸 (@mrjeffu) January 2, 2024
It was later overwhelmed by the blaze despite efforts by rescue crews to control the fire.
A passenger on the Japan Airlines flight told Kyodo news agency: "I felt a boom like we had hit something and jerked upward the moment we landed.
"I saw sparks outside the window and the cabin filled with gas and smoke."
A Japan Airlines spokesperson said the plane was Flight 515, and had flown from Shin-Chitose airport, on the northern island of Hokkaido.
Dramatic footage showed a large burst of fire erupt from the side of the plane as it taxied along the Tarmac. The area around the wing then caught fire, as flames emerged from the aircraft's windows.
Later video showed fire crews working to put out the fire with streams of water. The flames had spread to much of the plane.
Video and photos shared on social media showed passengers shouting inside the smoke-filled cabin, escaping the plane using emergency slides and running across the runway away from the inferno.
About 100 flights are set to be cancelled following the crash.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida instructed relevant agencies to assess the damage swiftly and provide information to the public, according to his office.
Transport minister Mr Saito said the cause of the accident was unclear and the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB), police and other departments would continue to investigate.
"The transport ministry will attempt to resume the operations of Haneda airport as soon as possible," Mr Saito said.Haneda is one of the busiest airports in Japan, and many people travel over the New Year holidays.
It closed all runways following the incident, a spokesperson for the airport said.
Kaoru Ishii, a mother who was waiting outside the arrival gate for her 29-year-old daughter and her daughter's boyfriend, who were returning on the flight, said she initially though the flight was delayed until her daughter called to explain.
"She said the plane had caught fire and she exited via a slide," Ishii said. "I was really relieved that she was alright."
