TOKYO (AP) — A large passenger jet and a Japan Coast Guard plane collided on the runway at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Tuesday and burst into flames, killing five people aboard the Coast Guard plane, officials said.

All 379 passengers on Japan Airlines flight JAL-516 were able to exit safely before the Airbus A350 completely burst into flames, Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito confirmed.

The pilot of the Coast Guard’s Bombardier Dash-8 plane escaped, but the five crew members died, Saito said. The plane was preparing to take off to deliver aid to an area hit by a major earthquake on Monday, officials said.

Television footage showed an orange fireball erupting from the Japan Airlines plane as it collided on landing, and the plane then belching smoke from the side as it continued down the runway. Within 20 minutes, all passengers and crew slipped down emergency slides to escape.

As firefighters tried to extinguish the fire with water jets, the area around the wing of the passenger plane caught fire. The flames spread throughout the aircraft, which eventually collapsed. The fire was extinguished after about six hours.

Tuesday’s accident was the first serious damage to an Airbus A350, one of the industry’s newest large passenger aircraft. It entered commercial service in 2015. Airbus said in a statement that it was sending specialists to assist Japanese and French officials investigating the accident and that the plane was delivered to Japan Airlines in late 2021.

The A350 flew from Shin Chitose Airport near the city of Sapporo, the transport minister said.

The fire is likely to be seen as a crucial test case for aircraft fuselages made from carbon composite fiber like the A350 and Boeing 787 rather than traditional aluminum skins.

“We don’t know that much about how composites burn,” said safety consultant John Cox. “This is the most catastrophic fire on a composite aircraft that I can imagine. On the other hand, that hull protected (the passengers) from a really terrible fire – it didn’t burn out for a while and allowed everyone to get out.”

JAL Managing Executive Officer Tadayuki Tsutsumi said at a news conference late Tuesday that the A350 was conducting a “normal entry and landing” on the runway, without elaborating how it collided with the Coast Guard plane. Noriyuki Aoki, also a senior executive at JAL, said the airline claimed the flight had received permission to land from the aviation authority.

Police are expected to investigate the accident on suspicion of professional negligence, NHK television reported.

Coast Guard spokesman Yoshinori Yanagishima said its Bombardier Dash-8 aircraft, based in Haneda, was scheduled to fly to Niigata on Monday to deliver relief supplies to residents affected by a deadly earthquake in the region . The Dash-8 turboprop is often used on short-haul and commuter flights.

The Coast Guard pilot reported to his base that his plane exploded after colliding with the airliner, Vice Commander Yoshio Seguchi told reporters.

Shigenori Hiraoka, head of the Transportation Ministry’s Civil Aviation Office, said the collision occurred as the JAL plane landed on one of Haneda’s four runways, where the Coast Guard plane was preparing to take off. Transportation safety officials were analyzing communications between flight control officers and the two planes and planned to question JAL officials to find out what led to the collision.

Hiraoka praised JAL for “taking appropriate measures” to safely evacuate all passengers and crew.

Swede Anton Deibe, 17, a passenger on the Japan Airlines plane, told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that “the entire cabin was filled with smoke within a few minutes.” We threw ourselves on the floor. Then the emergency doors opened and we rushed through them.

“The smoke in the cabin burned like hell. It was hell. We have no idea where we’re going, so we just run into the field. It was chaos,” Deibe added.

Another passenger told NHK television that flight attendants were calm and asked everyone to leave their luggage behind. Then all the lights went out and the temperature in the cabin began to rise. The passenger said she was afraid she wouldn’t get off the plane alive.

All passengers and crew slipped down the rescue slides and survived. Some passengers said in media interviews that they only felt relief when they reached a grassy area behind the tarmac.

JAL said four passengers were taken to a medical facility. NHK said 14 other people were injured.

Cox, the safety consultant, said cabin crew did a “remarkably good job” getting passengers off the plane.

“It shows good training,” Cox said. “And if you watch the video, people are not trying to get anything out of overhead. They’re focused on getting off the plane.”

The transport minister said officials were doing their utmost to prevent delays in the delivery of aid to earthquake-hit areas. Transportation officials said the airport’s three other runways had reopened.

Haneda is the busiest of the two major airports serving the Japanese capital, offering numerous international and transcontinental flights. Due to its proximity to central parts of the city, it is particularly popular with business travelers.

The twin-engine, two-aisle A350 is used by a number of long-haul international airlines. According to Airbus, more than 570 of the aircraft are in use.

According to its website, JAL operates 16 aircraft of the A350-900 version. It recently announced details of 13 of the newer A350-1000 variant it plans to enter into service, saying they will become “the airline’s new flagship for international service after almost 20 years.” The first of these aircraft arrived a few weeks ago and was scheduled for the Haneda-New York JFK route.

On the social media platform

___

Yamaguchi reported from Kyoto, Japan. Adam Schreck in Osaka, Japan, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.