tjh290633 wrote:As far as I can see there were two problems.
The Airbus had been cleared for finals and landing.
The relief aircraft moved on to the runway. Had it been told to hold at the threshold or had it been cleared for takeoff?. If the former there was a pilot error. If the latter, which permission was given first? There is a possibility of Aircraft Control error.
What I do not understand is why the Airbus was not told to abort it's approach and go round again. ATC must have seen the smaller aircraft moved onto the runway, either visually or on their radar.
The version I read, from someone who had listened to the ATC conversation, was that the Dash-8 had been told to hold short of that runway. It did not, which looks like pilot error.
The A350 would surely have performed a go-around, which does not require ATC approval, had its pilot seen the Dash-8. So I assume that either he did not see the Dash-8 or it was too late to do a go-around.
But it is all very early still,
As an aside JAL and ANA have a rather unusual habit of using wide-body planes for short'ish domestic flights. This is presumably because of the large numbers of passengers on those routes. Such planes have high-density seating, often with no premium cabin. The JAL 747 that crashed years ago had 520 souls on board. So this was a lot of people to evacuate, and impressive that it was pulled off in such a situation. A UK domestic flight would typically carry half that number of passengers.