As Flames Surged, Order Prevailed Inside a Japan Airlines Jet

As smoke filled the cabin of Japan Airlines Flight 516 after its fiery landing in Tokyo on Tuesday, the sound of a child’s voice rose above the din of confusion onboard. “Please, let us off quickly!” the child pleaded, using a polite form of Japanese despite the fear washing over the passengers as flight attendants began shouting instructions.

In the minutes that followed, even as the flames that would eventually engulf the JAL plane flickered outside the windows, order held. The attendants evacuated all 367 passengers through the three exit doors deemed safest, sending them down the emergency slides one by one, with no major injuries. Most left behind everything but the phones that would capture the harrowing scenes for the world.

While a number of factors aided what many have called a miracle at Haneda Airport — a well-trained crew of 12; a veteran pilot with 12,000 hours of flight experience; advanced aircraft design and materials — the relative absence of panic onboard during the emergency procedure perhaps helped the most.

“Even though I heard screams, mostly people were calm and didn’t stand up from their seats but kept sitting and waiting,” said Aruto Iwama, a passenger who gave a video interview to the newspaper The Guardian. “That’s why I think we were able to escape smoothly.”

Anton Deibe, a 17-year-old passenger from Stockholm, agreed with that assessment, saying, “The cabin crew were very professional, but one could see even in their eyes that they were scared.” Still, he added, “no one ran ahead to save themselves. Everyone waited for instructions.”

A day after the JAL fire, caused by a collision on the runway with a Japan Coast Guard aircraft, clues began to emerge about what led to the disaster, which killed five Coast Guard members on their way to help with earthquake relief in western Japan.