JAL Plane Makes Emergency Stop at Haneda Airport; Plane Starts Takeoff Run 30 Meters from Runway Centerline, Hits Aviation Light on Runway

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:38 JST, April 9, 2025

A Japan Airlines plane bound for Kitakyushu made an emergency stop after beginning its takeoff at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Monday night, according to the transport ministry.

The 35.8-meter-wide aircraft was running nearly 30 meters left of the 60-meter-wide runway’s centerline.

It ran with its left main landing gear and wing off the runway for about 300 meters before hitting an aviation light on the runway’s left side and coming to a stop. The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry and other authorities suspect the pilots mistook the runway lights for the centerline and are investigating the details of the incident.

According to the ministry and the airline, JAL 377, a Boeing 737-800 with 80 passengers and crew on board, entered Runway D － 2,500 meters long － from Taxiway D2 at around 7:10 p.m. on Monday. The aircraft began its run toward the northeast after air traffic control gave clearance for takeoff.

Before the emergency stop, JAL 377 was not running near the white centerline lights － which indicate the middle of the runway － but was instead 30 meters away from the centerline near the runway lights － also white － at the left end of the runway, according to officials. After accelerating to 90-130 kph, the captain and his crew noticed the leftward deviation and decided to abort takeoff and moved the aircraft toward the center of the runway. However, before coming to a stop, the aircraft hit a 70-centimeter-long blue taxiway light, located beside taxiway D3.

No injuries were reported in the incident.

Runway D resumed operations after being closed for 50 minutes. Another aircraft took over Flight 377’s operations.

According to the ministry, Runway D had been under repair since last month with some of the centerline lights having been sequentially turned off. Related entities had been notified about the situation. On Monday night, the lights near D2 were turned off, and those from D3 onward were lit as usual.

The captain and his crew told authorities that the centerline lights seemed darker than usual and that they saw a blue taxiway light slightly to the left ahead of the aircraft and realized it had drifted leftward.