Tokyo Narita runway reopens following FedEx crash
Tokyo's Narita airport reopened its main runway earlier today following yesterday's fatal accident in which a FedEx Boeing MD-11 freighter crashed and burst into flames.
A spokesman in Narita airport's international affairs division says the 4,000m-long runway, 16R/34L, reopened today at 09:10.
He says the first arrival was at 09:24 and it was a Lufthansa passenger flight from Frankfurt.
Yesterday at around 07:00 a FedEx MD-11F on a flight from Guangzhou, China crash landed on runway 34L, before bursting into flames and its wreckage coming to a rest upside down. The two pilots on board both died.
Narita's spokesman says yesterday 101 flights were cancelled and about 50 were diverted to other Japanese airports.
The MD-11 wreckage was removed from the runway in the very early hours of this morning, adds the spokesman.
Officials from Japan's Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission and Japan Civil Aviation Bureau's flight standards department are now investigating the crash.
