Fiery Tokyo plane crash kills two

**Martin** · 03-23-2009

Originally Posted by BBC News

A cargo plane has crash-landed in high winds at Japan's largest airport, killing both crew members on board.
The accident happened as the Federal Express plane arrived at Narita international airport, near Tokyo, from Guangzhou in China.
Japan's public broadcaster NHK showed dramatic footage of the plane bouncing as it landed on the runway, then bursting into flames.
Dozens of flights have been cancelled as one runway at Narita remains closed.

The two pilots were taken to hospital but confirmed dead
It took firefighters about 30 minutes to bring the fire under control.
The accident happened at about 0650 local time on Monday (2150 GMT Sunday).
The two crew were taken to hospital but both were confirmed dead.
Officials said the pilot, Kevin Kyle Mosley, was 54 years old and the co-pilot, Anthony Stephen Pino, was 49. Both were American.
Flight delays
Footage of the crash shows the plane landing hard, tipping on to its left wing and bursting into flame as it then rolled over.
The plane landed in strong winds, of up to 72 km (45 miles) per hour, and Japan's meteorological agency had issued a gale warning for the area around Narita.
"We have information that strong winds caused the plane to divert from the runway," a Narita Airport spokeswoman told reporters.
But officials said it was too soon to confirm if the winds caused the crash.
The jet was a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, according to Japan's Kyodo News.
Airlines have cancelled more than 30 flights and diverted others to nearby airports, because Narita's longest runway remains closed.
Parts of the wreckage were still burning hours after the crash.
Kyodo News said it was the first fatal aircraft accident at Narita Airport since it opened in 1978.

link + video

**Tatsujin** · 03-23-2009

:-(

**Paulo** · 03-23-2009

Thats horrible. So many plane crashes lately. At least this only had packages in there and not passengers.

**Yakumo** · 03-23-2009

On the local TV station they showed footage of it sliding down the runway in a ball of flames. Horrible thing to happen but as Paulo said, luckily there were only two aboard.

yakumo

**retro** · 03-23-2009

Originally Posted by Yakumo

On the local TV station they showed footage of it sliding down the runway in a ball of flames. Horrible thing to happen but as Paulo said, luckily there were only two aboard.

yakumo

Yes, that's in the BBC video ;-)

What seems to have happened is that there was a warning issued about wind shear - basically rapidly changing crosswinds. In other words, they were advised not to land. My friend was on a later flight which got diverted I think to another airport, so I guess that it was possible to land.

Why is it that, when this seems to be a common thing in that region, pilots still try to land? In America, there have only been two crashes due to wind shear since the bad one in 1982 thanks to better detection equipment - they were in 1985 and 1994. I remember another flight crashing somewhere in Asia fairly recently, though - and several planes had aborted landing due to wind shear that same day.

It is a small blessing that it was not a passenger jet. Perhaps that's why they took the risk? Still, no consolation to the families.

Yakumo, I hope you didn't have anything coming from Guangdong!

**GaijinPunch** · 03-23-2009

Well, it's been windy as fuck, that's for sure. From the bits of the video, I thought they were taking off. Was confused as I've never heard of wind shear as an issue in a take off.

**Tatsujin** · 03-23-2009

concerning the latest news, the cause was a wind presure from right top down onto the airplane, which pushed it literally few meters down to the ground, where it then crashed.

**GaijinPunch** · 03-23-2009

the cause was a wind presure from right top down onto the airplane,

That is the definition of wind shear, as per retro's post.

**graciano1337** · 03-23-2009

geez, did they have no other choice but to land under those conditions?

**pas7680** · 03-24-2009

shit, i'm flying into Narita on Friday - this is all i need to hear.

**Yakumo** · 03-24-2009

Originally Posted by retro

Yes, that's in the BBC video ;-)

The one on-line in the link above doesn't show the plane sliding for quite a long time though. It really do slide quite some way. No surprising really but what a sight. People on passing planes must have been in shock seeing that.

Originally Posted by retro

Yakumo, I hope you didn't have anything coming from Guangdong!

No, but I did have feeling that the plane may have came from the US to China then to Japan. So I was wondering If my Mad World from ServiceGames was on it but not so since it arrived today.

Yakumo

**Yakumo** · 03-24-2009

Originally Posted by graciano1337

geez, did they have no other choice but to land under those conditions?

They were advised NOT to land. All planes got the same message with all apart from the FeDex one deciding to stay in the air.

**DC_Fan** · 03-24-2009

Originally Posted by Yakumo

They were advised NOT to land. All planes got the same message with all apart from the FeDex one deciding to stay in the air.

And the pilot still went ahead and tried? Wow, bad, costly decision.

**Yakumo** · 03-24-2009

Originally Posted by DC_Fan

And the pilot still went ahead and tried? Wow, bad, costly decision.

yep. He was in his 50's though so he probably though "Been there, done that".

yakumo

**arnoldlayne** · 03-24-2009

Reminds me of a flight from London to Rome:

The pilot announces they won't let them land at the destination airport but he smugly tells us (the passengers) "we know better... so we're going ahead anyway."

1 hour of circling around Rome later...

"Well, they still won't give us permission so we're going to land at another airport."

**Jamtex** · 03-25-2009

I flew into Narita yesterday evening from Taipei, Taiwan and the flight was delayed (due to a late arriving plane) and when we did land, we taxied for over 15 minutes from the runway that was open to the unloading bay.