asiansnow

Since the Coastguard says that it's piolt believed he was given clearence to be on the runway, then the issue is most likely human error or some sort of distrubance with the radios. The BBC along with most national broadcasters have limited resources and political biases that don't give you an accuate picture of what's happening in Asia. The US has a handful of news media companies with wide presence in certain regions (CNN has affiliates in India, FOX globally, SKY in Europe...) but they still have the problem of political and cultural biases towards the western world or certain political biases. When discussing Asia it's always best to use news sources from Asia because they tend to be more in-depth and often involve the party concened; you can use a western news source to guide you but it's akin to using Wikipedia for your thesis. Imagine if you went to FOX News to find out what the Democratic party platform was? Or NBC/SKY News to find out what the Republicans wanted to do in Florida?

According to NHK it seems that the pilot of the coastguard is saying he was given clearance to take-off, even if the ATC recording we have suggest he was only given clearance to wait on a taxiway just before the runway. I wonder if the Coastguard have their own ATC radio channel that might explain the discrepancies? Why are you quoting the BBC on a topic that pertains to Asia? Try to find a more accurate Asian source, ideally from the country that is discussed, when discussing topics in Asia.

You can see the DHC at around 2:30. If you have trouble spotting it then follow the single bright light (taxi light?) back from the collision point (3:48) and you should be able to make around the other flashing lights of the plane to as it moves into the impact location. The question is why the DHC was on the runway when the garbled atc recording suggests that the DHC was only cleared to just before the runway (probably awaiting JAL to land first).

I remember reading that the inital fire was only on one side of the Airbus plane. IF it was also the left side than perhaps the DHC was struck on by the left wing of the Airbus. I watched the long CCTV footage of the incident on Youtube and you can clearly see a bright light of the DHC at the location, and just about make out a couple of flashing lights while it was moving to the incident location (but not at the location itself), but I do not know which light could be so bright on a airplane.

My understanding what that the inital fire before evacuation was actually very small, to the point the flight attendants decided it was worth evacuating slowly (and orderly). Looking at footage there were at least two fire engines at the start, but remember that the last thing you want to do is douse passengers in firefighting foam when there is no real danger of fire (remember what happened to the South Korean Asiana Airlines flight in San Francisco). Overall nearly 100 firefighters were deployed. I believe what happened was that the JAL was cleaered to land, while the Coastguard was cleared to wait just before the runway half way down (because smaller planes do not need a lot of runway). The JAL flight then landed and slammed into the back of the Coastguard plane halfway down the runway. What needs to be understood is why the Coastguard plane was on the runway instead of waiting before it.