ANA Plane May Have Missed Runway’s Centerline at Haneda

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:10 JST, October 15, 2025

The All Nippon Airways plane that hit runway lights at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Monday may have tried to take off using the edge of the runway, instead of its center.

In April, on the same runway, a Japan Airlines aircraft also drove along the edge of the pavement and collided with runway lights. The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry is investigating the latest case under the assumption that the ANA plane missed the centerline by a significant margin.

ANA Flight 639 was bound for Iwakuni Kintaikyo Airport in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and the runway it used, Runway D, is about 60 meters wide and 2.5 kilometers long. The plane appears to have driven in a line about 30 meters to the left of the runway’s center.

After the plane took off, 16 white runway edge lights and two blue taxiway edge lights, each about 30 centimeters tall, were found to have been damaged along the left side of the runway over a roughly 800-meter stretch.

Runway D also has white centerline lights embedded in its surface. However, due to work to improve the runway’s paving, some centerline lights have been turned off since March, though the runway continues to be used. The centerline lights near where ANA Flight 639 began its takeoff are said to have been off on Monday night.

The transport ministry had notified airlines and other relevant parties that some centerline lights were off.

The ANA plane departed around 9 p.m. Monday and returned to Haneda around 10 p.m., as it was realized that the plane may have collided with the runway lights, according to the transport ministry. No injuries were reported among the 174 crew members and passengers.