Japan Airlines stated that it took 18 minutes for Flight 516’s burning Airbus A350-900 to be fully evacuated after colliding with a Japanese Coast Guard Bombardier Dash 8 at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Those 18 minutes span from the point of impact until the final person left the aircraft. The recorded footage and accounts from those on board illustrate the dramatic and chaotic crash, where properly followed procedures allowed all 367 passengers and 12 crew members to escape safely.
Images from inside the passenger cabin were harrowing. As the JAL Airbus skidded down the runway, the aircraft filled with smoke and the blinding orange light from the flames beamed through the windows. Nearly everyone onboard was audibly panicking but remained in their seats, and the child’s voice can be heard above the others in one widely-circulated video. According to the New York Times, the child was politely pleading to the attendants, “Please, let us off quickly!”
A JAL statement confirmed that the aircraft’s PA system failed during the crash, and the cabin crew used a megaphone and raised voices to communicate with passengers. Everyone onboard followed the instructions and orderly made their way to the three emergency exits the crew identified as safe to use. Every passenger went down the slides and quickly distanced themselves from the wreckage.
JAL Flight 516’s evacuation proved to contradict the idea that today’s presumed “everyone for themselves” mentality would never allow everyone to survive such a horrific crash. The collective image of men on the doomed Titanic standing aside to left women and children board lifeboats first is largely seen as the product of a bygone age, but maybe the average person is still as altruistic.
Not everyone involved in the collision survived. Five of the six crew members on the Coast Guard aircraft were killed. The only survivor was the captain, who was left seriously injured. The air traffic control transcript indicates that the Dash 8 might have disobeyed an order and taxied onto the runway into the path of the landing Airbus.