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Japan Airlines A350 and Coast Guard Dash 8 collide at Tokyo's Haneda airport; five reported dead

Authorities including the Japan Safety Transport Board and police are investigating the January 2 collision, which police have classed as a runway incursion; the cause has not been determined.

By AI ReporterFirst reported Jan 2, 2024, 4:40 p.m. ETUpdated Aug 11, 2026, 9:47 p.m. ET

More on this incident

Authorities in have begun investigating a collision between a and a Coast Guard Bombardier Dash 8 at 's Haneda airport on Tuesday, January 2, 2024. The situation is still developing. Sources give different times: marketscreener.com places it on , while timesofindia.indiatimes.com reports . The airliner was in the phase. The flight number is given differently by the outlets — cnn.com reports it as , timesofindia.indiatimes.com as flight 516. The incident is classed as a runway incursion. people died, according to marketscreener.com and nbcnews.com; cnn.com reports the dead were crew. Marketscreener.com and cnn.com report that of the six Coast Guard crew aboard the Dash 8 died, and marketscreener.com reports that the Coast Guard plane captain, Genki Miyamoto, 39, survived and alerted his base about the explosion. Cnn.com, marketscreener.com and timesofindia.indiatimes.com report people were aboard the and all escaped after the aircraft erupted into flames; on the survivor count the sources differ, with cnn.com giving and marketscreener.com giving 1. Escape chutes were inflated within seconds and passengers evacuated as the cabin filled with smoke, leaving their carry-on bags behind. Anton Deibe, a 17-year-old Swedish tourist aboard the airliner, described flames, black smoke and difficulty breathing in the cabin. The cause has not been determined. Marketscreener.com reports that the Safety Transport Board, police, and French and British agencies are involved in the inquiry. Police say they have set up a special unit at the airport to examine the incident but declined to comment on a report of a negligence probe; local media, as reported by marketscreener.com, say police are probing for possible professional negligence. That is a stated line of inquiry and not a finding. Marketscreener.com reports that investigators recovered the Dash 8's flight recorder but were unsure what data could be extracted, and that air traffic control recordings indicate the jetliner was cleared to land minutes before the collision. said its aircraft recognised and repeated the permission from air traffic control. Airbus said it was sending technical advisers to help with the probe. Marketscreener.com reports that 115 fire-fighting units responded and the JAL aircraft was eventually consumed by flames; the Japanese transport ministry said the airline's evacuation procedures were "conducted appropriately". The outlets refer to the 1985 accident in which 520 lives were lost due to a faulty repair. The registration of the airliner has not been identified in the reporting; registry records list 115 aircraft under , which is a description of the operator's fleet and not an identification of the aircraft involved. The Coast Guard Dash 8 was on a mission to send aid to 's west following Monday's deadly earthquake, according to marketscreener.com, which also describes the event as the first significant accident involving the , a type that entered service in 2015. The investigation remains open.

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Reference data

From aircraft and geographic registries, not from the news sources. Registry records can be out of date, and describe the aircraft and the place only — they say nothing about what happened.

Registration
JA722A
Type
Bombardier DHC-8 315 MSA — twin-engine turboprop landplane
Registered owner
Japanese Coast GuardThe owner of record is not necessarily the operator, the pilot, or otherwise connected to the flight.
Terrain elevation
89 ft
Nearest aerodrome
7.4 miles SSE of Iwabuchi Watergate Auxiliary Airfield (JP-0361)

Sources

Revision history

  1. Version 312 Aug 2026, 02:28current

    Introduced Airbus before its statement as "the European manufacturer that builds the A350 model flown by Japan Airlines," so the reader meets the source before it speaks; the statement and its attribution to the reporting outlets are unchanged. No other text was altered: all sourced conflicts (aircraft type, operator, flight number JAL-516 / JAL516 / 516, time 'Tuesday evening' / 5.46 pm, survivors 379 / 1), figures (379 aboard, five dead, 115 fire-fighting units, registration JA722A, serial 656, 520 lives in 1985) and attributions remain exactly as given.

  2. Version 312 Aug 2026, 01:47current

    Added the flight-number and survivor-count conflicts as sourced ranges, the runway-incursion classification, the Swedish passenger's account and evacuation detail, and a note that the aircraft's registration has not been identified alongside the operator's registered fleet size.

  3. Version 212 Aug 2026, 02:23

    Introduced Airbus at the point it is quoted \u2014 now identified as "the European manufacturer that builds the A350 model flown by Japan Airlines" \u2014 and attributed the statement about technical advisers to the reporting outlets. No other substantive changes: all sourced conflicts (aircraft type, operator, flight number, time, survivors, fatalities, captain's name) remain reported with their attributions exactly as given in the fact set.

  4. Version 212 Aug 2026, 01:42

    Added flight number 516, the conflicting reported times, that five of six Coast Guard crew died and the surviving captain's name and age, the 115 fire-fighting units, the transport ministry's evacuation assessment, luggage-free evacuation, and the 1985 JAL accident reference.

  5. Version 112 Aug 2026, 01:55

    First published.

  6. Version 112 Aug 2026, 01:37

    First published.

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