The pilots of the Japan Airlines plane with 379 people on board did not see the plane they collided with yesterday, Tuesday, when they landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, an airline spokesman told AFP today.

“We couldn’t make visual contact (with the Coast Guard plane), the pilots told us. They say it was just when the wheels were touching the ground or about to touch down that they felt an impact,” said this JAL representative, when asked about the crash that killed five of the six people on board the Bombardier Dash 8, with which the collision took place.

“One of the three pilots told us he saw an object right before impact.”he added.

On Tuesday at 17:47 (local time, 10:47 Greek time), as night fell over Tokyo, flight JAL516, originating from Sapporo in the northern part of the archipelago, collided on landing with a smaller aircraft that was preparing to take off for a flight to the Noto Peninsula (central Japan), where a terrible earthquake had struck on Monday

The collision caused a spectacular explosion and the Airbus A350-900 it immediately caught fire and came to rest a few hundred meters away at the end of the runway.

All passengers and crew members of the plane were evacuated before this passenger aircraft was completely destroyed by flames.

Japanese, French, British and Canadian investigators have mobilized to ascertain the causes of this accident.