Japanese air safety experts search for voice data from plane debris after runway collision

Transport safety officials are searching for the voice recorder from a Japan Airlines airliner that caught fire after a collision with a coast guard plane

A team of transport safety officials searched for a voice recorder from the severely burned fuselage of a Japan Airlines plane 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 its five other crewmembers were killed.