TOKYO (AP) — The collision between Japan Airlines (JAL) flight 516 and a Japanese Coast Guard aircraft on a runway at Japan’s Haneda International Airport last week has been hailed as nothing short of a miracle. The crash and subsequent explosion captured the world’s attention as it was shared across social media.
The real headline was how few fatalities resulted from what very well could have been a tragedy of immense proportions. Just five crew members on the Coast Guard prop plane perished, while another was critically injured. But all 379 passengers and crew aboard the JAL plane managed to survive, stunning both aviation experts and the general public.
Crashes today are not only far rarer but also far more survivable than ever before. In fact, a generation ago, the Flight 516 crash would likely have resulted in a mass-casualty disaster, as seen in the 1977 runway collision between two jets in the Canary Islands that killed 583 people.
The immediate aftermath of the JAL disaster saw the flight’s cabin crew praised for overseeing a speedy and orderly evacuation as the aircraft became engulfed in flames. They did so under the most extreme conditions, overcoming a number of setbacks that could have easily proven fatal.
Commercial air travel is now nearly twenty times safer than four decades ago, according to a 2020 MIT study. The United States hasn’t had a major commercial aviation accident since 2009.
Advancements in new aircraft construction have been the most significant factor in why air travel has become so safe and crashes so survivable. The industry has also addressed factors such as the assembly error or design flaw that led to a door blowing off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-Max 9 on January 5.
This includes using carbon composite materials in aircraft construction, which are significantly stronger from an engineering standpoint than traditional metals. The use of composites has been hailed as a “game changer” by aviation industry experts.
While new aircraft designs and improved crew training continue to make air travel safer, the industry must still address such factors and continue to closely study when and how they have previously failed. The Tokyo tragedy is a testament to how far aviation safety has come, proving that when disasters do occur, the industry is better equipped than ever to address them with the highest chance of survival for passengers and crew.