By Mayumi Maruyama and Teele Rebane, CNN
(CNN) — A Japan Airlines plane carrying hundreds of passengers burst into flames on landing at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Tuesday after it collided with an aircraft involved in earthquake relief efforts.
All team members and passengers, plus 8 children under the age of two, aboard JAL Flight 516 were safely evacuated from the passenger plane, according to the airline, but five of the other six people aboard the other plane reportedly died.
The Airbus A350-900 burst into flames after landing in Haneda from the northern Japanese city of Sapporo at 5:47 p. m. local time (3:47 a. m. ET).
Five team members died aboard the second plane, believed to be a De Havilland Canada DHC-8, operated through the Japanese Coast Guard (JCG), according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK. The captain of the plane is in critical condition.
JAL is investigating the main points and cause of the plane’s fire, an airline representative told CNN.
According to NHK, local firefighters reported that 17 other people aboard the Japan Airlines plane were injured.
However, lately there is no more data on the main points of the injury.
More than 100 fire trucks were dispatched in response to the accident, NHK reports.
Video footage showed the plane being fed through a giant fireball as it descended the runway. The plane was later seen strapped to a desk with other emergency slides to escape the inferno as firefighters tried to battle the developing flames.
A spokesperson for the JCG told CNN that its planes headed from Haneda Airport to an air base in Niigata Prefecture to assist with relief efforts following Monday’s magnitude 7. 5 earthquake.
Japan Airlines Flight 516 took off from Sapporo’s new Chitose Airport in Hokkaido Prefecture bound for Tokyo’s Haneda Airport with about 400 passengers and a crew on board, according to NHK.
The majority of departures from Haneda Airport are now canceled and it’s unclear when flight services will resume, the broadcaster reports.
CNN is reaching out to verify more details.
CNN’s Emiko Jozuka, Eric Cheung and Mayumi Maruyama contributed to this report.
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