Japan has announced the strengthening of its air traffic control measures in the wake of an accident that occurred at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, involving the collision of a civilian aircraft with a coast guard plane, resulting in the tragic loss of five lives.
On January 2nd, a Japan Airlines aircraft collided with a coast guard plane on the airport runway.
A total of 379 passengers on the civilian aircraft were successfully evacuated before it became engulfed in flames. Tragically, five out of the six crew members on the coast guard aircraft lost their lives in the incident, as reported by France Press.
As part of the newly implemented measures across the country, a designated employee will be required to maintain continuous surveillance of a monitoring system that issues alerts to the control tower whenever there is a breach on the runway.
The Ministry of Transport has stipulated that controllers should refrain from informing aircraft of their takeoff sequence to prevent misunderstandings.
Minister Tetsuo Saito emphasized, “One of my paramount responsibilities is to restore confidence in air transportation.”
The ministry will establish an expert committee to explore additional avenues for enhancing safety, with the committee’s recommendations expected to be announced this week.
Recordings released by the ministry last week revealed that Japan Airlines had granted clearance for landing to its aircraft.
However, the coast guard plane was instructed to wait on the runway.
Air traffic controllers had informed the coast guard plane that it was “next” in the takeoff sequence.
There has been speculation that the captain of the coast guard aircraft, the sole survivor among its crew, believed that the control tower had given authorization for it to use the runway.
Authorities promptly removed both aircraft from Haneda’s runway, and normal air traffic operations were resumed at the airport.
Additional air traffic controllers were deployed starting from Saturday.
A continuous alarm monitoring system was also assigned to an airport control staff member.
An official from the Ministry of Transport noted, “Control center employees have several matters to oversee, and they cannot simply focus on the alarm system.”
Local newspaper “Asahi” reported that the Transport Safety Board had identified 23 “serious incidents” involving the risk of runway collisions during the decade ending in 2023.
In five of these instances, air traffic control errors are suspected to have played a role, according to the same source.
