A father who was on board a plane that burst into flames after it collided with a coastguard aircraft in Tokyo has said he and his family are “still in shock” following the ordeal.
Image: Passengers on the airport apron after escaping the plane. Pic: William Manzione
Image: All passengers and crew managed to leave the plane safely. Pic: William Manzione
Speaking to Sky News, Mr Manzione explained what it was like inside the aircraft and how his family dodged a “really big bullet”.
“My assumption was that something with the landing gear was broken, I was sitting on the front part of the plane, which as I saw later was the less affected part,” he said, when asked what happened when the plane landed.
“There was a huge impact and I looked my wife in the eyes and said ‘something is absolutely not right’.
“Within a few seconds there was a louder bang, and you felt the plane was bending on the front, towards the ground, then you start hearing the hostesses shouting in Japanese.
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“I could understand they were trying to keep everyone calm and not panic, there were already some passengers trying to leave their seat.”
‘I still feel the adrenaline running’
More than 24 hours after evacuating the aircraft, Mr Manzione said: “I think we are under shock still, I feel the adrenaline running but also a feeling that it could have been much, much worse, we are all together here.”
He explained that it wasn’t until after he left the aircraft that he realised the true extent of the crash.
“I didn’t realise the whole situation. I was with my kids, one of who is seven, and my wife, we started following the hostesses instructions, everything was really quick,” he said.
Image: People inside the burning Airbus A350
“When I got off my seat I started to see flames out the windows and then I realised this is not good.
“When I saw the inflatable slide, I understood this was bad. I took my son and we went down the slide and met with my other relatives. Then I turned around and saw the aeroplane with the nose completely smashed and the flames all over the back.
“That’s when I started to realise this is way bigger than what I felt on the touchdown. I didn’t realise there was another plane involved, I was shocked at that.”
Image: Pic: Alto-maple
But Mr Manzione said the moment he got “most scared” was while waiting on the runway, when one of the engines started to sound like it was going to explode – thankfully it didn’t.
‘Dodged a really big bullet’
Praising the airline crew, Mr Manzione said it was “astonishing” that all the passengers were brought to safety as quickly as they were.
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Japan plane crash: What happened?
“They were amazing, I had to leave my bag behind with passports and everything. But within a few minutes, 370 people got off the plane with only two exits,” he said.
“Me and my family got together last night, and today we realised we probably dodged a really big bullet. This feeling of relief is helping a lot to keep a little bit stable. The emotions yesterday were really overwhelming.”
Dozens of Palestinians have gathered near the ruins of a mosque destroyed by Israeli airstrikes to perform Eid al Adha prayers.
They were surrounded by the debris and rubble of collapsed houses at the former site of the al Rahma mosque in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza to mark the start of the major holiday.
Commonly translated as the Feast of Sacrifice, Eid al Adha is the second of the two main Islamic holidays – alongside Eid al Fitr – when better-off Muslims commemorate Ibrahim’s test of faith by slaughtering livestock and animals and distributing some of the meat to the poor.
Image: Palestinians hold prayers by the ruins of the al Rahma mosque.
Pic: Reuters
“Today, after the ninth month, more than 37,000 martyrs, more than 87,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed,” said Abdulhalim Abu Samra, a displaced Palestinian, after prayers in Khan Younis. “Our people live in difficult circumstances.”
In the nearby town of Deir al Balah in central Gaza, Muslims held their prayers in a school-turned-shelter, while some, including women and children, went to cemeteries to visit the graves of loved ones.
Image: The Dome of the Rock shrine at the al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City. Pic: AP
Palestinians also gathered at the al Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City, the site of the Dome of the Rock shrine.
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It comes against a the backdrop of the devastating Israel-Hamas war which has pushed the Middle East to the brink of a regional conflict.
The Israeli military has announced a “tactical pause” in its offensive in southern Gaza to allow the deliveries of more humanitarian aid.
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Image: Muslims hold Eid al Adha prayers in Nairobi. Pic: Reuters
Image: Muslim children play in Nairobi, Kenya. Pic: Reuters.
The suspension, which begins as Muslims started marking the major holiday, came after discussions with the United Nations and international aid agencies, the military said.
Image: People attempt to catch balloons released after an Eid al-Adha prayer at a public park, outside El-Seddik Mosque in Cairo, Egypt. Pic: Reuters
Image: Moskovsky central avenue during celebrations in St Petersburg, Russia. Pic: AP
Image: The al Amin mosque in downtown Beirut, Lebanon. Pic: Reuters
Most countries marked Eid al Adha on Sunday, while others, like Indonesia, will celebrate it on Monday.
Cities including Beirut, in Lebanon, Mosul in Iraq and Istanbul, in Turkey crowded with worshippers.
Image: Worshippers in Mosul. Pic: Reuters
In Egypt, balloons were released after prayer at a public park, outside El-Seddik Mosque in Cairo.
Muslims in Russia offered prayers at the Moscow Cathedral Mosque and gathered in Moskovsky central avenue during celebrations in St Petersburg.
The summit was aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. Moscow was not invited, and its main ally China declined to attend.
Vladimir Putin is not ruling out talks with Ukraine, according to his spokesperson, who said guarantees would be needed to ensure the credibility of any negotiations.
It comes as Kremlin forces in Ukraine claim to have taken control of a village in Zaporizhzhia.
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‘We must bring each and every one of them home’
A joint communique from 80 countries said the UN Charter and “respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty… can and will serve as a basis for achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.
“The ongoing war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine continues to cause large-scale human suffering and destruction, and to create risks and crises with global repercussions,” the declaration said.
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Participants India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates were among those that did not sign up to the final document, which focused on issues of nuclear safety, food security and the exchange of prisoners.
Brazil, which has “observer” status, also did not sign. With China, Brazil has jointly sought to plot alternative routes toward peace.
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Image: Rishi Sunak arrives at the peace conference. Pic: Reuters
Ursula von der Leyen, chief of the European Commission, said this weekend has brought peace closer to Ukraine, but that peace will not be achieved in one step.
“It was not a peace negotiation because Putin is not serious about ending the war, he’s insisting on capitulation, he’s insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory – even territory that today is not occupied,” she said.
Analysts say the two-day conference is likely to have little concrete impact towards ending the war because the country leading and continuing it, Russia, was not invited.
Montenegro Prime Minister Milojko Spajic told the gathering on Sunday: “As a father of three, I’m deeply concerned by thousands of Ukrainian kids forcibly transferred to Russia or Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine.”
“We all at this table need to do more so that children of Ukraine are back in Ukraine,” he added.
Sweden has released a convicted Iranian war criminal as part of a prisoner swap deal.
Tehran and Stockholm carried out the switch, which saw a European Union diplomat and another man released in exchange for Hamid Nouri, who was found guilty of being complicit in the 1988 mass executions in the Islamic Republic.
Nouri was arrested in 2019 as he travelled in Swedenas a tourist.
This likely prompted the detention of the two Swedes, part of a long-running strategy by Iran to use those with ties abroad as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West.
While Iranian state television claimed that Nouri had been “illegally detained”, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said diplomat Johan Floderus and a second Swedish citizen, Saeed Azizi, had been facing a “hell on earth”.
“Iran has made these Swedes pawns in a cynical negotiation game with the aim of getting the Iranian citizen Hamid Nouri released from Sweden,” Mr Kristersson said on Saturday.
“It has been clear all along that this operation would require difficult decisions – now the government has made those decisions.”
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State TV showed film of Nouri limping off a plane at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran and embracing his family.
“I am Hamid Nouri. I am in Iran,” he said. “God makes me free.”
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Oman mediated the release, its state-run news agency reported.
In 2022, the Stockholm District Court sentenced Nouri to life in prison.
It identified him as an assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison outside the Iranian city of Karaj.
The 1988 mass executions came at the end of Iran’s long war with Iraq.
Image: Johan Floderus reunites with his family at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm. Pic: AP
After Iran’s then Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a United Nations-brokered ceasefire, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, backed by Saddam Hussein, stormed across the Iranian border in a surprise attack.
Iran ultimately blunted their assault but the attack set the stage for the sham retrials of political prisoners, militants and others that would become known as “death commissions”.
International rights groups estimate that as many as 5,000 people were executed. Iran has never fully acknowledged the executions, apparently carried out on Mr Khomeini’s orders, though some argue that other top officials were effectively in charge in the months before his 1989 death.
Late Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month, was also involved in the mass executions.
Image: Saeed Azizi, left, and Johan Floderus at Arlanda Airport. Pic: AP
Mr Floderus was arrested in April 2022 at Tehran airport while returning from a holiday with friends. He had been held for months before his family and others went public about his detention.
Mr Azizi’s case was not as prominent but in February the group Human Rights Activists in Iran reported that the dual Iranian-Swedish national had been sentenced to five years in prison by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on charges of “assembly and collusion against national security”.