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Exclusive: A Queensland family on board the Japan Airlines plane that burst into flames on Tuesday have told 9News they thought it was going to "blow up" when it crashed into a Coast Guard aircraft, killing five people.
Hailee and Jakob O'Sullivan were heading home from holidaying with their parents in Japan on JAL flight 516 as the plane crashed into the Bombardier Dash-8 Coast Guard plane, causing an orange fireball to erupt around them.
"We thought it was going to blow up – lucky it didn't – I was in a way waiting for it to blow up," Hailee told 9News.
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The crew evacuated passengers from the flight and gave the instructions in Japanese for everyone to cover their face with shirts and jumpers to avoid inhaling the smoke, which the family quickly followed despite not understanding the language.
Most of the family slid down emergency shutes from the plane with just the clothes they were wearing and their phones, but luckily their mum had a bag with their passports.
"When we were sliding down the runway we saw orange out the windows and didn't realise the engines were on fire until we stopped," Jakob said.
Jakob said as they ran towards the airport they saw the plane become completely engulfed in flames.
Videos filmed by the family after the crash revealed their fear watching the fireball unfold.
"The whole inside's on fire, we would be dead right now," they said in the video.
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But they were completely unaware of what the plane had hit until they Googled it later.
"It's very sad that people died and knowing that you're on the other plane and that you're lucky and everyone on our plane was lucky to be alive," Jakob said.
Hailee and Jakob praised Japan Airlines crew for their quick thinking to evacuate all passengers from the plane.
The family was nervous about getting on their repatriation flight to Brisbane the following day, and said that when the plane landed their nerves kicked in.
Hailee and Jakob said they felt incredibly lucky after seeing the images of the chaos during the plane blaze.
"It could have been a lot worse. If it had taken longer (to evacuate) we would have still been in the plane when it caught on fire," Jakob said.
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Now investigators are looking into how the disaster unfolded.
Japan's Transport Ministry on Wednesday released a transcript of air traffic control communication of about 4 minutes and 25 seconds just before the crash. It showed no clear takeoff approval was given to the Coast Guard plane.
According to the text, the Tokyo air control gave the JAL Airbus A350 permission to land on Runway C, noting that there was a departing plane, with the JAL pilot repeating the instruction.
"Cleared to land 34 right," Audio from LiveATC.net said, appearing to detail the crew reading back a clearance order for runway 34.
The Coast Guard plane said it was taxiing to the same runway, and the traffic control instructed it to proceed to the stop line ahead of the runway.
"Taxi to holding point," the smaller plane was told.
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The controller noted the Coast Guard gets the departure priority, and the pilot said he was moving to the stop line.
Their communication in the script ended there. Two minutes later, there was a three-second pause, apparently indicating the time of the collision.
Police have begun a separate probe into possible professional negligence.
