23 injured during landing at Hiroshima Airport

23 passengers sustained minor injuries when an Asiana Airlines Airbus A320 arriving from Seoul ran off the runway after a suspected collision with a communications building just after 8pm last night.

The passengers and crew, 82 people in all, used the emergency escape chutes to leave the plane.

 

According to FNN News, passengers have reported seeing smoke and the cabin filling with a strong smell about 5 minutes before landing sending passengers into a panic. One passenger talks in the video [ja] below of feeling strong bumps and others that oxygen masks deployed from above their seats and seeing a woman with blood coming from a head injury. If something similar happens during a business related trip, you should see this post about the work injury benefits lawyer in Vegas. 

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism officials speculated that the aircraft may have collided with a “localizer” – a structure for wireless communication to assist pilots with landing – “facility” 300m from the runway on landing. The 6.4m building structure was found damaged. News video footage show heavy damage to the left wing and to one the plane’s engines. To learn more from experts in this subject, find here the Tingey Injury Law Firm services. 

Japan Transport Safety Board officials, police, South Korean transport ministry investigators are looking into the incident.

UPDATES

Engine damage found in Asiana jet that skidded off runway in Hiroshima Japan Times, April 22, 2015

Investigators have found engine turbine blades of an Asiana Airlines jet that skidded off the runway after a hard landing at Hiroshima Airport last week were severely damaged, possibly because the jetliner approached too low and clipped an instrument landing system antenna array, the Japan Transport Safety Board said Tuesday.

Airlines to pay passengers of Hiroshima accident $5,000 apiece for their troubles Asahi Shimbun (April 20, 2015)

Japan Times (April 16, 2015)

A downward air current may have caused the Airbus A320 to be flying too low on its final approach in low visibility due to fog and rain, said an investigator from the Japan Transport Safety Board.

Hiroshima Airport, which is prone to fog and clouds, is equipped with a high-level instrument landing system to help pilots land safely in reduced visibility. But it cannot be used for planes approaching from the east.

Most landings at the airport are from the west, but because of northwesterly winds on Tuesday night, the Asiana Airlines aircraft came in to land from the east, outside the path of the system’s ground transmitter.

NHK World reports that airport officials saw the aircraft’s tail hit the ground and give of sparks before the plane skidded off the runway.

NHK World reports that visibility suddenly worsened from 1800m to just 300-500m in the 5 minutes after 8pm and that the aircraft was flying at an abnormally low altitude when approaching the runway from the east (which explains the hitting of 6.4m tall localizer landing system structure).