return to normal at Tokyo-Haneda airport, six days after a collision between two planes

Flight operations returned to normal at Tokyo-Haneda Airport on Monday January 8, six days after the collision between an airliner and a coast guard aircraft. The 379 passengers and crew members of a Japan Airlines Airbus were able to escape the burning cabin on January 2. Five of the Coast Guard plane’s six crew members died in the crash.

The runway on which the collision occurred, one of four at Haneda airport, had been closed since that date. This led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights, mainly domestic, at one of the world’s busiest airports. “Track C has resumed its activities” and the airport has therefore returned to normal operation, a spokesperson said on Monday.

Japanese, French, British and Canadian investigators are mobilized to analyze the causes of the accident. A transcript of communications with the control tower minutes before the collision, released by the Transport Ministry, suggests that the Coast Guard plane was ordered to stop and that the Japan Airlines plane was was allowed to land. The captain of the coast guard aircraft, the only survivor of this second plane, however declared after the accident that he had received authorization to take off, according to Japanese media.