Japanese Airline Collision: Claiming 5 lives and over 100 million US 

When Japan Airlines Flight 516 landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Tuesday with hundreds of people on board, it burst into a horrific fireball.

All 379 people aboard the JAL Airbus A350 wide-body jetliner were able to escape before the aircraft became fully engulfed by fire, which took more than six hours to extinguish.

Five of the six crew on the other plane – a smaller Coast Guard aircraft en route to deliver aid to quake-hit regions on Japan’s west coast – were killed, and the surviving pilot was seriously injured.

Transportation authorities are investigating the circumstances that led the Coast Guard plane to enter the runway where the passenger jet was landing, while police are also looking into possible professional negligence in the case, according to media reports.

Transcripts released by authorities show that air traffic control ordered the Coast Guard plane to stop near the runway minutes before the crash, instructions the pilot appeared to have acknowledged by reading back.

Japanese authorities said Wednesday that the airliner had been cleared to land but the smaller plane had not been cleared to take off, based on the transcripts.

The pilot was cleared to enter the runway after the crash, according to the Coast Guards.

Officials have just begun their investigation, and aviation experts say it usually takes the failure of multiple safety barriers for a plane crash to occur.

According to a copy of the bulletin released by U.S. regulators, a notice to pilots in effect before the accident indicated that a strip of stop lights embedded in the tarmac as an additional safety measure to prevent wrong turns was out of service.

Estimated Losses

Japan Airlines (JAL) estimated Thursday that it will incur an operating loss of about 15 billion yen ($104.81 million) as a result of the collision of its flight JL516 with the coast guard plane.

The loss of the plane will be covered by insurance, the company said, adding that it was in the process of assessing the impact on its profit forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31.

Insurance industry sources say US insurer AIG (NYSE:AIG) was the primary insurer on a $130 million “all risks” policy for the two-year-old plane that was destroyed by the fire. AIG declined to comment.

According to Aviation Safety Network, it was the world’s first hull loss for the A350 model. The type entered commercial service in 2015 and is made largely of carbon composites.

JAL’s shares were up 0.4 percent when trading resumed after the New Year’s holiday. They were down as much as 2.4% in early trading before a rebound.