Earlier today, Jiji Press reported that the Japanese parliament passed a bill that revises its civil aviation law and makes communication training a requirement for pilots. This will include pilots flying private and Coast Guard aircraft.
This is in response to the January 2024 collision at Haneda Airport, which involved a Japan Airlines Airbus A350-900 operating flight JL516 clipping a Japan Coast Guard Dash 8 upon landing, killing 5 and sending the A350 up into flames.
The Dash 8 was told to hold short of the runway, but did not follow through on the instructions and taxiied onto the runway, while the Japan Airlines A350 was given landing clearance.
This new aviation law revision will take effect within four years. The training will be called crew resource management, and will be “…conducted to improve skills for communication between the captain and the copilot and between the cockpit crew and air traffic controllers to prevent human errors such as runway incursions,” according to Jiji Press.
This law will also establish a runway safety team at eight of Japan’s major airports.
I was back in Tokyo during this collision, and it was shocking to see an incident like this happen to an airport and airline I was so familiar with. Japan was already down on its knees with a disastrous earthquake the day prior, and this crash rocked the nation further. I flew out of Haneda domestically a few days after this incident, and the airline was operating with limited flights and a high number of cancellations.
This marked the end of a remarkably safe period for Japanese aviation and was JAL’s first hull loss incident since 1985. This was also the first hull loss incident for the Airbus A350 and any composite widebody.
Featured image by Reuters.
