Tokyo Accident News

[Gene Cryder]

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In addition to the structural attributes of both aircraft, considerable advancements have been made in aircraft safety systems for use in the air and on the ground: evacuation technology, environmental control systems, fuel tank inerting, smoke mitigation and fire suppression systems all intended to give the occupants sufficient time to evacuate the aircraft. All large commercial aircraft are required to show (by analysis, partial or full-scale test) that they can be evacuated within 90 seconds with half the exits unavailable. The A350-900 is certified up to 440 passengers.

In the case of the JAL A350-900 (an aircraft configured with 391 seats for domestic flying) only three of the eight slides were deployed because of the dangerous conditions around the remaining exits. JAL noted that the public announcement and intercom systems were inoperative after the crash, forcing the crew to use megaphones to direct the passengers.

There has only been limited data in the real world to date about how composite aircraft structures respond to fire, including several examples from military aviation like the 2008 B-2 crash in Guam. Thus, this most recent incident just provided the aircraft design, fire rescue and regulatory communities with a massive trove of new data on the crashworthiness of carbon fiber, including how (and quickly) the composite structure burns in a full-scale environment after other life-preserving mitigations are felled.

The advanced aircraft of the 2010s, the A350 and 787 (and the similarly designed A220) are the latest to benefit from decades of advancements driven by over-engineering and stringent regulatory requirements born from earlier tragedies.

Those outcomes were the result of seats that can withstand 16 Gs of force, less flammable cabin materials, as well as other advancements in systems integration and redundancy born from accidents of the 1980s and 1990s. The JAL accident strikingly illustrates the sum total of all the factors that together prevented this accident from becoming a far greater tragedy. And it will provide tangible data on which the next generation of accidents can be lessened or avoided altogether.

The Air Current is a subscription-based aviation news service that combines the highest standards of journalism with the level of technical detail and rigor expected by a sophisticated industry audience. We have deep expertise in the subjects we cover and an outstanding network of sources, both of which allow us to break important stories that are typically overlooked by other publications.

Police will investigate whether a crash between an airliner and a smaller plane at a Tokyo airport may involve professional negligence, media outlets reported on January 3, 2023, as authorities began inspecting the charred wreckage and runway for clues.

All 379 people miraculously escaped the Japan Airlines (JAL) Airbus A350 which erupted into flames after colliding with a De Havilland Dash-8 Coast Guard turboprop shortly after landing at Haneda on January 2 evening.

Once a recurring safety problem, aviation experts say the number of such runway collisions or incursions has become far less frequent with modern ground tracking technology and procedures. The crash came just weeks after the global airline industry heard fresh warnings about runway safety.

Metropolitan Police Department will conduct an investigate into whether possible professional negligence led to deaths and injuries, news outlets including Kyodo news agency, Jiji and Nippon TV reported, citing police sources.

A police spokesperson said a special investigation unit had set up at the airport and was investigating the runway and planning to interview people involved but declined to comment on whether they were looking into possible professional negligence.

As well as the police probe, the Japan Safety Transport Board (JTSB) is also investigating the crash, with participation from agencies in France, where the Airbus airplane was built, and Britain where its two Rolls-Royce engines were manufactured, people familiar with the matter said. Airbus said it was also sending technical advisers to assist in the investigation.

Authorities were set to begin work to remove the charred remains of the JAL aircraft in the afternoon, Kyodo reported, while TV footage showed police and fire department personnel inspecting the site of the accident on Jan. 3.

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Ospreys have had a number of accidents in the past, including in Japan, where they are deployed at U.S. and Japanese military bases. In Okinawa, where about half of the 50,000 American troops are based, Gov. Denny Tamaki told reporters Wednesday that he would ask the U.S. military to suspend all Osprey flights in Japan.

Coast guard aircraft and patrol boats found one male crew member, who was later pronounced dead by a doctor at a nearby port, Ogawa said. They also found gray debris believed to be from the aircraft and an empty inflatable life raft in an area about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) off the eastern coast of Yakushima, he said.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the Osprey disappeared from radar a few minutes before the coast guard received the emergency call. The aircraft requested an emergency landing at the Yakushima airport about five minutes before it was lost from radar, NHK public television and other news outlets reported.

The Marine Corps and Navy have reported similar clutch slips, and each service has worked to address the issue in their aircraft, however clutch failure was also cited in a 2022 fatal U.S. Marine Corps Osprey crash that killed five.

Separately, a U.S. Marine Corps Osprey with 23 Marines aboard crashed on a northern Australian island in August, killing three Marines and critically injuring at least five others who were onboard during a multinational training exercise.

In 1953, the United States detonated aboveground nuclear weapons during tests at the Nevada Test Site. In 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown occurred in Japan. Both events spread radioactive material over many miles and over population centers. Neither event resulted in any adverse health effects from that radiation.

Noting the challenges Japan will face in managing the nuclear waste that will be generated from decommissioning 79 of its nuclear research and development facilities, the International Atomic Energy Agency is recommending that the country prepare for delays in the development of disposal facilities and provide appropriate waste storage capacity for the interim period.

The mission of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), and my personal mission, is to safely decommission the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station and thereby contribute to the revitalization of Fukushima.

In performing this important work, we are guided by the principle of balancing the recovery of Fukushima with the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, doing everything possible to mitigate the risks as we progress. Since the accident on March 11, 2011, we have stabilized the site and alleviated many of its crisis aspects.

Most significantly, we have been making efforts to improve the working environment by reducing the contamination on the site due to the accident. About 4,000 workers are currently engaged at Fukushima Daiichi. The average monthly radiation dose for those workers has been reduced from 21.55 mSv (2,155 mrem) immediately following the accident to 0.3 mSv (30 mrem).

China will have the world's largest nuclear power fleet within a decade, an International Energy Agency official noted during a session at the High-Level Workshop on Nuclear Power in Clean Energy Transitions, World Nuclear News reported on March 3.

The accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, has sparked many safety improvements in the nuclear industry over the past decade. Lessons from the accident and its aftermath will influence firms and regulators as they consider the future design, construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear reactors.

It was a rather normal day back on March 11, 2011, at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant before 2:45 p.m. That was the time when the Great Tohoku Earthquake struck, followed by a massive tsunami that caused three reactor meltdowns and forever changed the nuclear power industry in Japan and worldwide. Now, 10 years later, much has been learned and done to improve nuclear safety, and despite many challenges, significant progress is being made to decontaminate and defuel the extensively damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactor site. This is a summary of what happened, progress to date, current situation, and the outlook for the future there.

Vice News has published a video on YouTube that follows two farmers from the Fukushima Prefecture, Noboru Saito and Koji Furuyama. Saito, who grows many different crops on his farm, says that the rice grown in the area is consistently rated as the best. Furuyama specializes in peaches and explains his strategy to deal with the stigma of selling fruit from Fukushima: grow the best peaches in the world.

Decommissioning work in parts of the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan has been delayed after engineers discovered that sandbags placed in the basements of buildings near Units 1 and 3 were found to contain excessive radiation levels. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) operates the plant and is in charge of the decommissioning efforts following the accident caused by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.

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