Passengers leave a burning plane in Japan on January 2 (Photo: William Manzione/X).
"The whole cabin was filled with smoke within minutes. The smoke in the cabin was terrible. It was like hell," Anton Deibe, 17, a Swedish passenger, described the chaos after the crash when the Airbus A350 landed on the runway at Haneda Airport, Tokyo, Japan on January 2.
Japan Airlines Airbus A350-900 caught fire after colliding with a Japan Coast Guard plane on the runway.
All 367 passengers and 12 crew members successfully evacuated before the fire engulfed the entire plane.
"We fell to the floor. Then the emergency exit opened and we ran towards it. We didn't know where to run, so we just ran towards it. It was chaos," Deibe told the BBC .
Deibe, her parents and sister later left the plane safely.
Satoshi Yamake, a 59-year-old passenger, said he saw the plane "tilt to one side and felt a big impact".
"There was a crash, like the plane hit something when it landed. I saw a spark outside the window and the cabin filled with smoke," another passenger described.
One passenger told Kyodo News that he felt a "loud bang as if the plane had hit something and jolted as soon as it landed".
Some passengers recorded videos showing a red light coming from the engine as the plane came to a stop. Another filmed footage from inside the plane, showing smoke quickly obscuring the lens as passengers screamed and crew tried to guide them out.
A female passenger said the cabin was dark as the fire raged as it landed. "It was hot inside the plane and honestly, I thought I wouldn't survive," she told NHK .
According to another passenger, escape was made more difficult because only one side of the emergency exit was in use. "An announcement said the doors at the back and in the middle could not be opened. So everyone moved to the front," he said.
Inside the plane carrying nearly 400 people in Japan that crashed
Images and videos show the moment passengers began jumping down the plane's inflatable slides, some doing somersaults in an attempt to escape the burning cabin and run to safety.
No one seemed to be carrying their bulky carry-on luggage, which is believed to be a key factor in keeping the cabin more airy and allowing people to escape more quickly.
Alex Macheras, an aviation analyst, told the BBC that the crew could have started evacuating passengers in the first few minutes after the crash, which is considered a crucial time.
The fire was "contained to one area" of the plane within the first 90 seconds, allowing the crew a short time to get passengers out.
Macheras said the crew knew which exits were farthest from the fire, which is why the photos show not all exits were open for passengers to escape.
Passenger Yamake said it took about five minutes for people to get out due to the chaos. "I saw the fire spreading for about 10, 15 minutes," he added.
Video footage from the scene shows flames quickly spreading and engulfing the plane, with firefighters struggling to contain the blaze as the fuselage began to split in two.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze. Fourteen passengers and crew were treated for minor injuries.
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