© Reuters. Firefighters work on a burning Japan Airways’ A350 airplane at Haneda Worldwide Airport, in Tokyo, Japan January 2, 2024. REUTERS/Issei Kato
By Tim Hepher, Allison Lampert, David Shepardson and Valerie Insinna
PARIS (Reuters) -Japanese investigators have begun probing the collision of two airplanes at Tokyo’s Haneda airport, weeks after the worldwide airline trade confronted warnings about runway security.
All 379 folks aboard a Japan Airways Airbus A350 escaped after it erupted in flames following a collision with a Sprint-8 Coast Guard turboprop that killed 5 of six crew on the smaller plane.
Consultants have cautioned it’s too early to pinpoint a trigger and stress most accidents are attributable to a cocktail of things.
However investigators have already begun analyzing what directions got by controllers to the 2 plane, alongside an in depth examination of airplane and airport techniques.
Japanese authorities mentioned on Wednesday the A350 was given permission to land, however the Coast Guard airplane was not cleared for take-off, primarily based on management tower transcripts.
Consultants mentioned the situation of the accident means bodily proof, radar knowledge and witness accounts or digital camera footage are prone to be available, easing the large forensic process.
“One obvious question is whether the Coast Guard plane was on the runway and if so why,” mentioned Paul Hayes, director of aviation security at UK-based consultancy Ascend by Cirium.
The crash is the primary vital accident involving the Airbus A350, Europe’s premier carbon-composite long-haul jet, in service since 2015.
In accordance with preliminary 2023 knowledge, the collision of the Coast Guard airplane with a two-year-old jetliner 3 times its size follows one of many most secure years in aviation.
Nevertheless it additionally comes weeks after a U.S.-based security group known as for international motion to forestall a brand new uptick in runway collisions or “incursions” as skies grow to be extra congested.
“Despite efforts over the years to prevent incursions, they still happen,” Flight Security Basis CEO Hassan Shahidi mentioned in a press release final month.
“The risk of runway incursions is a global concern, and the potential consequences of an incursion are severe.”
Though floor collisions involving damage or harm have grow to be uncommon, their potential for lack of life is among the many highest of any class and near-misses are extra frequent.
A collision between two Boeing (NYSE:) 747s in Tenerife in 1977, killing 583 folks, stays aviation’s most dangerous accident.
In 2016, a China Japanese Airbus A320 getting airborne from Shanghai missed hitting an Airbus A330 from the identical airline because it taxied throughout the take-off runway simply 19 metres under.
‘TECHNOLOGY GAP’
The Washington-based Flight Security Basis has discovered that breakdowns in communication and coordination typically play a job in runway crashes or close to misses.
However a scarcity of electronics to keep away from collisions on the bottom, relatively than within the air the place software program to set off avoidance has been accessible for the reason that Nineteen Eighties, can be a priority.
“Many of the serious incidents could have been avoided through better situational awareness technologies that can help air traffic controllers and pilots detect potential runway conflicts,” Shahidi mentioned.
The Federal Aviation Administration says some three dozen U.S. airports are fitted with a system known as ASDE-X that makes use of radar, satellites and a navigation device known as multilateration to trace floor actions.
However Nationwide Transportation Security Board chair Jennifer Homendy mentioned in November the U.S. aviation community – a bellwether for airports worldwide – lacks ample know-how to forestall runway incursions.
In 2018, Airbus mentioned it was working with Honeywell (NASDAQ:) on a system known as SURF-A, or Floor-Alert, designed to assist stop runway collisions by giving pilots visible and audio warnings about approaching hazards.
However no date for implementation has but been introduced and rolling out complicated new aviation techniques can take years.
“The system is still under development,” an Airbus spokesperson mentioned.
The top of Honeywell’s Aerospace Applied sciences division, Jim Currier, instructed Reuters the system went via a collection of profitable exams in December and must be licensed and accessible to airways “gradually over the next few years”.
An individual conversant in the bottom security challenge mentioned it was extra technically difficult than the TCAS system which has been serving to plane keep away from in-air collisions for many years.
Steve Creamer, a former senior director on the Worldwide Civil Aviation Group, mentioned stopping a touchdown plane placing a airplane is among the many high 5 international security priorities.
Though automated landings are rising, specialists say a lot nonetheless relies on visible checks by pilots who could also be distracted by a excessive workload or the blur of a night-time runway.
“I think the investigation will focus a lot on the clearances … and then also what the (JAL) crew could see. Could they physically see that airplane on the runway,” mentioned former U.S. air accident investigator John Cox.
Lighting was a problem in a 1991 collision between a USAir airplane and SkyWest (NASDAQ:) Airways plane at Los Angeles Worldwide Airport in California, for instance.
“One of the things that came out of that was that the USAir crew physically could not see the SkyWest Metroliner there. Although it was on the runway, the lighting was such that you … physically couldn’t see it,” he mentioned.
