Tokyo Town

Runway at Tokyo's Haneda airport reopens a week after fatal collision

Tokyo's Haneda airport is almost back to its normal operation Monday as it reopened the runway a week after a fatal collision between a Japan Airlines airliner and a coast guard aircraft seen to have been caused by human error. The collision occurred Tuesday evening when JAL Flight 516 carrying 379 passengers and flight crew landed right behind the coast guard aircraft preparing for a take off on the same runway, both engulfed in flames. All occupants of the JAL's Airbus A350-900 airliner safely evacuated in 18 minutes. The captain of the coast guard's much smaller Bombardier Dash-8 escaped with burns but his five crew members died. At the coast guard Haneda base, colleagues of the five flight crew lined up and saluted to mourn for their deaths as a black vehicle carrying their bodies drove past them. The victims' bodies were to return to their families Sunday after police autopsies as part of their separate investigation of possible professional negligence. Haneda reopened three ..

Japan's air safety experts search voice data from debris after collision

A team of transport safety officials searched for a voice recorder from the severely burned fuselage of a Japan Airlines plane on Friday, seeking crucial information on what caused a collision with a small coast guard plane on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda airport. Meanwhile, JAL also started using heavy machinery to remove some of the debris for storage in a hangar to allow the runway to reopen. Six experts from the Japan Transport Safety Board, walked through the mangled debris of the Airbus A350-900 that was lying on the runway searching for the voice data recorder. JTSB experts have so far secured both the flight and voice data recorders from the coast guard's Bombardier Dash-8 and a flight data recorder from the JAL plane to find out what happened in the last few minutes before Tuesday's fatal collision. All 379 occupants of JAL Flight 516 safely evacuated within 18 minutes of landing as the aircraft was engulfed in flames. The pilot of the coast guard plane also escaped, but i

Only the operator of Fukushima plant liable to pay damages: Tokyo Court

A Tokyo court on Tuesday held only the operator of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant responsible for paying damages to dozens of evacuees. The Tokyo High Court also slashed the amount to half of what the lower court had ordered and relieved the government of responsibility a decision that plaintiffs and their lawyers criticised as belittling their suffering and the severity of the disaster. The court ordered only the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, known as TEPCO, to pay a total of 23.5 million yen (USD 165,000) to 44 of the 47 plaintiffs, while not holding the government accountable. Tuesday's ruling apparently backpedaled from an earlier decision in March 2018, when the Tokyo District Court held both the government and TEPCO accountable for the disaster, which the ruling said could have been prevented if they both took better precautionary measures, ordering both to pay 59 million yen (USD 414,400) in damages. The decision comes at a time when Japan's ...

Japan's new PM Kishida sends offering to controversial Tokyo shrine

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida donated ritual offerings Sunday viewed by Chinese and Koreans as a symbol of Japanese wartime aggression

Japan to expand coronavirus emergency ahead of Tokyo Olympics 2020

Japan is set to further expand a coronavirus state of emergency, currently in Tokyo and 5 other prefectures, to nine areas as the government is determined to hold the Olympics in just over two months

Olympics: Tokyo wants Covid-19 state of emergency extended as cases surge

Tokyo needs to extend the current state of emergency as the number of new coronavirus infections has continued to increase, says Governor Yuriko Koike

Dhabas and Japanese food: Visit mini Japans in rural Haryana and Rajasthan

Reclusive Japanese community made automobile belt spread across Haryana, Rajasthan uniquely its own