In a tragic accident on Tuesday, a Japan Airlines plane and Japanese coast guard aircraft collided on the runway at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. The crash killed five coast guard crew members who were on their way to deliver aid to victims of a deadly earthquake that hit Western Japan on Monday.
All 379 people on the Japan Airlines plane were safely evacuated before the passenger aircraft caught fire, the AP reports. The cause of the incident remains under investigation.
While three of the airport’s four runways reopened Tuesday night, the runway where the incident occurred is currently closed, an information center operator at the Haneda Airport told Condé Nast Traveler, saying that it is unclear when the runway will reopen.
How the incident is impacting travel
At least 140 flights were canceled Wednesday as a result of the closed runway, according to the AP. Approximately 20,000 Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways passengers have been impacted by the cancellations, according to Japan’s state broadcaster NHK. Travelers flying in or out of the Haneda Airport this week should contact their airline for details regarding flight schedule disruptions, a statement posted on the airport’s website says.
Beyond the batch of recent flight cancellations, the incident isn’t expected to significantly affect most international travelers to Japan, Andres Zuleta, a travel specialist at Boutique Japan, tells Traveler, as many airlines and flights continue to fly into and depart from Haneda. Additionally, Tokyo has two major airports, with a significant portion of international flights arriving and departing from Tokyo’s Narita Airport, he says.
“Most travelers visiting Japan as tourists depend more on Japan’s extraordinary and extensive railways to get around the country (domestic flights are useful for some journeys within Japan, but the majority of tourists explore the country primarily by rail),” says Zuleta. “So in this sense, even if we do see continued disruptions to normal operations at Haneda Airport, on the whole this is perhaps more likely to affect the plans of domestic leisure and business travelers.”
In response to the plane crash, the Central Japan Railway Company scheduled additional Shinkansens (bullet trains) for Wednesday, Duff Trimble, travel specialist at Wabi-Sabi Japan, tells Traveler. This week, coinciding with the Japanese New Year Oshogatsu, is one of the busiest periods for domestic travel in Japan, so travelers should expect crowded train stations on January 3 and 4, he adds.
The Haneda Airport plane collision came just one day after a powerful earthquake off Japan’s Noto Peninsula that has killed at least 62 people, per the AP. The earthquake has most severely impacted Nagano, Kanazawa, Shibu, and other coastal regions, while Japan’s main tourist hubs of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto remain unimpacted, a spokesperson for InsideJapan Tours tells Traveler.
“Between the terrible earthquake and crash, the New Year has gotten off to a challenging start in Japan,” says Zuleta. “We know authorities are still investigating the cause of the crash, but as someone who has flown Japan Airlines countless times, I was not surprised to hear that the flight crew was able to safely evacuate every single person off the plane in an orderly and efficient fashion. It’s a small but meaningful silver lining in what has been an unusually turbulent New Year’s period for Japan.”
