Swede Anton Deibe, aged 17, shared the harrowing experience of being on a Japanese Airlines flight that caught fire after colliding with a Coast Guard jet. Deibe, traveling with his family, was among the 379 passengers who remarkably emerged unscathed from the collision. Recounting the ordeal, he described the cabin swiftly filling with smoke, prompting passengers to throw themselves to the floor. As emergency doors opened, passengers rushed out onto the field after landing. Deibe expressed the intensity of the smoke, mentioning it "stung like hell," and highlighted the chaotic situation inside the cabin. Visuals captured at Tokyo's Haneda airport depicted people rushing out through agape emergency doors.
In videos taken by passengers, flames and smoke engulfed the cabin during landing, causing panic and shouts. Another passenger recalled feeling a sudden impact and upward jerk upon landing, with sparks outside the window as the cabin filled with gas and smoke. Kaoru Ishii, a mother awaiting her daughter's return on the flight, initially thought it was delayed until receiving a call explaining the plane had caught fire, and her daughter had exited via a slide.
Live footage on NHK showed the Japan Airlines aircraft bursting into flames as it skidded down the runway, eventually becoming fully engulfed in fire. Despite the intensity of the incident, all 379 passengers evacuated before the aircraft was entirely ablaze. Tragically, five of the six crew members on the Coast Guard plane lost their lives, with the captain sustaining injuries. The Coast Guard plane had a mission to deliver relief materials to areas affected by recent earthquakes in Niigata, resulting in at least 48 fatalities.
