Footage on broadcaster NHK showed flames coming out of the windows of the aircraft and beneath it. The runway was also set alight.
Japan Airlines has confirmed that, incredibly, all 379 passengers have been evacuated.
Officials believe that the plane on fire on Tokyo’s runway collided with a Japanese coastguard plane, which was on its way to Niigata Airport to deliver aid to the earthquake-hit Noto peninsula.
Japanese broadcasters TBS and NHK say one person onboard the coastguard plane escaped, while the other five remain unaccounted for.
It is worth noting that Japan has not suffered a serious commercial aviation accident in decades.
Its worst ever was in 1985, when a JAL jumbo jet flying from Tokyo to Osaka crashed in central Gunma region, killing 520 passengers and crew.
That disaster was one of the world’s deadliest plane crashes involving a single flight
That all on Japan Airlines flight 516 escaped is extraordinary. Experts say a flawless evacuation and new technology played a large part in their survival.
Images and video show the moment people began to jump down the airliner’s inflatable slides - some tumbling in their effort to get away from a now burning cabin, and running to greater safety.
No one appears to be holding their bulky carry-on luggage - a major factor in how quickly a cabin can be cleared.
Alex Macheras, an aviation analyst, told the BBC that the crew “were able to initiate a textbook evacuation” in the crucial first few minutes after impact.
The fire was “isolated to one area” of the Airbus A350 for the initial 90 seconds, allowing them a brief window to get everyone out.
He said the crew were clearly able to understand which doors were away from the flames, which is why pictures show not all the exits were opened for people to escape through.
He added that passengers can slow things down in panic - for example by trying to grab their bags from lockers.
The Airbus A350 is one of the first commercial jets to be made of composite, carbon-fibre materials - which appear to have stood up well to the initial collision and the resulting fire.
Newly released transcripts of air traffic control instructions just before the crash confirmed the JAL Airbus A350 was cleared to land.
Permission for take-off was not given to the coastguard Bombardier Dash-8.
According to officials, the coastguard aircraft’s last communication with the control tower was to repeat the instruction “taxi to holding point” - a place on the airfield’s taxiway system where aircraft await permission to enter the active runway for take-off.
The transcripts appear to contradict the coastguard plane’s captain - the only one of the six crew to survive - who told investigators he had been given permission to enter the runway which the JAL airliner was approaching.
Investigators will, no doubt, try to establish why the coastguard pilot failed to obey clear instructions.
If any civil pilot operating on a civil airport can advance to take-off point without full ATC’s permission, then there needs to be some kind of plane holding control that can only be remotely released by the ATC giving permission to proceed past the final holding point prior to take-off.
This, with hindsight, was obviously an accident waiting to happen.
Interesting to get the burning question answered as to why everyone survived. The crew was excellent but it basically was the passengers who left their baggage where it was thus avoiding more chaos and delay. But it sounds as if passengers had actually been expected to grab their luggage. If that is true, then the instruction not to touch the carry-on luggage in any case of emergency should be made part of the safety instructions by any airline.
After that, the evacuation of all 379 on board Japan Airlines Flight 516 proceeded with life-saving precision.
“Right after the plane touched down, the pilot felt a sudden shock, and lost control to stay in the runway. A fire took place but the pilots didn’t recognise it in the beginning and learned about it [through the] cabin attendant,” the JAL spokesperson said.
There were 3 pilots and 12 flight attendants on board when the incident took place. The aircraft’s announcement system was damaged, leaving the crew to use megaphones and their own voices to shout instructions.
“The first thing cabin attendants did [after they realised there were] passengers who recognised that their plane was on fire, was to make them stay calm and not to stand up, which could make the escape very difficult. The announcement system was unusable so these instructions were made without it.”
Japanese media have described the evacuation as a “miraculous 18 minutes”. Passengers left their hand luggage, dashed to emergency exits and slid out of the aircraft before it was engulfed in flames.
“[As] smoke started to come into the cabin and spread out… cabin attendants [began shouting] at passengers, [saying]: ‘Leave your belongings!’, ‘Take off your high heels’, and ‘Head down’,” said the spokesperson. Their “co-operation… was [the] key for all passengers [being able] to escape quickly and safely”, they added.
Extra plaudits for the attendants for coping without the announcement system …
