How hundreds of passengers managed to escape from the Airbus A350 that caught fire at a Tokyo airport

First came the accident: the Airbus A350 with 379 people on board collided with another plane while landing in Tokyo.

Then came the heat and smoke as the plane barreled down the burning runway.

The survival instinct kicked in and people rushed to flee the smoke-filled cabin, knowing that Their lives depended on the next few seconds..

The escape of all passengers on Japan Airlines Flight 516 is an extraordinary feat, which experts attribute to a perfect evacuation and new technology.

Those on board the second plane, a smaller Coast Guard aircraft that was supposed to deliver aid to New Year’s earthquake victims, were not so lucky: 5 people died and the pilot was seriously injured.

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Passengers on the Japan Airlines plane ran to the emergency exits without their carry-on luggage, as instructed by the flight crew.

The simple fact of leaving your valuables behind would be an “important factor”. behind the speed of the evacuation, as the last person escaped just before the plane burst into flames on the airport runway.

“It was hell”

Investigators are reconstructing what happened at Haneda Airport at 5:47 pm local time (20:47 GMT) on Tuesday and why two planes collided on the runway.

For now, the videos and statements from the passengers speak for themselves a few minutes of fear and then disbelief before what has happened.

One of them, 17-year-old Swede Anton Deibe, described the chaos after the impact.

“Within minutes the entire cabin filled with smoke,” he told the Swedish newspaper. Aftonbladet.

“The smoke in the cabin had a major impact on us. It was hellhe added. “We fell to the ground. Then the emergency doors opened and we jumped on them.”

“We had no idea where we were going, so we just ran onto the track. “It was chaos,” he explained.

He, his parents and his sister managed to escape the rubble unharmed.

Satoshi Yamake, a 59-year-old passenger, said he felt like the plane had “tilted to one side” and noted “a big blow” upon first impact.

Another anonymous passenger described a ‘thump’, as if the plane hit something during landing. “I saw a spark outside the window and the cabin filled with smoke.”

A third party informed the news agency Kyodo that he “felt a bang, as if we had hit something and stood up abruptly as soon as we landed.”

“I thought I wouldn’t survive.”

Some captured snippets of those moments on their phones.

Several passengers filmed the red glow of a still-burning engine as the plane came to a stop.

Another captured footage of the interior, where a cloud of smoke quickly obscured the camera lens as passengers screamed and cabin crew tried to determine their next moves.

A passenger stated that it was dark on board when the fire intensified after landing.

“It was hot in the plane and To be honest, I didn’t think I would survive.” he told Japanese radio station NHK.

According to another passenger, the escape plan was complicated because only one door was used.

“That was announced the rear and center doors could not be openedso everyone disembarked early,” he explained.

Images and videos show the moment people began jumping from the plane’s inflatable slides, with some wallowing as they tried to escape an already burning cabin to greater safety.

No one seems to take their carry-on luggage, which is a major factor in how quickly a cabin can become empty.

Alex Macheras, an aviation analyst, told the BBC the crew was able to organize “a textbook evacuation.” in the crucial first minutes after impact.

Minutes saved

The fire remained “isolated to one area” of the Airbus A350 for the first 90 seconds, leaving a brief pause to get everyone out.

He explained that the crew clearly understood which doors were out of reach of the flames and therefore not all exits were opened to allow people to escape.

He added that passengers can sometimes delay the operation if they panic, for example by trying to get their luggage from the compartments.

The Airbus A350 is one of the first commercial aircraft to use… carbon fiber composite materialsthat apparently withstood the initial collision and the resulting fire well.

All this was accomplished as the fire spread rapidly and engulfed the aircraft.

Video footage showed firefighters struggling to control the blaze as the fuselage began to split in two.

Passenger Yamake stated that despite all the chaos, the passengers and crew It took about five minutes for them to come out.. “I saw the fire spread in about 10 to 15 minutes,” he said.

Tsubasa Sawada, 28, noted; “All I can say is it was a miracle, we could have died.”

It took several hours before the fire was finally extinguished. A total of 14 passengers and crew were treated for minor injuries.

Passengers tried to come to terms with what they had just experienced, telling their friends and loved ones that they were okay and preparing for what would come next.

Sawada has a question: “I want to know why this happened,” he declared, after assuring himself that he has no intention of boarding another plane until he gets the answer.

The role of firefighters

Only three inflatable slides could be used to evacuate passengers, but these could not be deployed properly due to the way the plane landed. The slide was very steep, which could have been dangerous.

The plane’s announcement system also failed during the evacuation, forcing the flight crew to relay instructions using a megaphone and shouting, Japan Airlines said.

But there were also signs that the plane’s design was aimed at giving its occupants the best chance of escape. Professor Graham Braithwaite, director of transport systems at Cranfield University in Britain, told the BBC that it appeared the plane “did what it was designed to do, which was to protect the occupants and enable rapid evacuation.”

The role of airport firefighters on the groundwhich aim to reach any fire within two minutes would also have been crucial in ensuring there was time to escape.

Firefighters will have focused on protecting exits and ensuring there was a clear path for people to evacuate. The largest fire could only be extinguished after the last person had escaped. (JO)