A Japan Airlines passenger jet was engulfed in flames on the runway at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport after reportedly being involved in a collision with another aircraft.
Security camera footage showed a ball of flames exploding into the night sky as the aircraft touched down.
JAL Flight 516 hit a smaller plane as it touched down, reportedly a turbo-prop Embraer DHC8-315 being operated by the Japan Coast Guard.
All 379 of the passengers and crew were safely evacuated.
Television footage has shown the passenger aircraft on the runway with its nose wheel collapsed and flames and smoke coming from the fuselage and the engines. A section of the runway was also on fire.
The aircraft had taken off from New Chitose Airport outside Sapporo in Hokkaido bound for Tokyo.
Television images showed the front emergency escape slides deployed but no slides to the rear of the aircraft.
More than 70 fire engines have been deployed, NHK reported.
It also reported that the coast guard aircraft had a crew of six and that one person was able to escape the crash. There is no further information about the other crew members.
The coast guard plane had been preparing to take off to deliver relief assistance to people affected by Monday’s earthquake in central Japan.
A video clip taken by a passenger aboard the JAL jet showed flames on the wings as it went down the runway after the collision. Another clip showed white smoke in the cabin as passengers prepared to evacuate.
At 7pm local time (10am GMT), the aircraft was still burning fiercely, with the nose and tail sections collapsed onto the runway. Flights into and out of Haneda have been suspended.
Japan has not suffered a serious commercial aviation accident in decades.
Its worst was in 1985, when a JAL jumbo jet flying from Tokyo to Osaka crashed in the central Gunma region, killing 520 passengers and crew.
It was was one of the world’s deadliest plane crashes involving a single flight.
The prime minister’s office in Japan has set up a crisis management centre to coordinate the response to the crash. The investigation is expected to focus on how the two aircraft were on the runway at the same time.
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