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Lights designed to prevent runway incursions were out of service when a Japan Coast Guard plane collided with an arriving Japan Airlines Co. passenger jet at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Jan. 2.

Stop bar lights installed at runway-holding positions have been suspended due to maintenance since April, transport ministry officials said.

But ministry officials said the lights would not have been turned on even if they had been in service because there was sufficient visibility that day.

All 379 passengers and crew escaped from the Airbus A350 jet of Japan Airlines, which became engulfed in a fireball when it collided with the coast guard’s Bombardier DHC-8 on Runway C.

The pilot of the coast guard aircraft was seriously injured, and its five other crew members were killed.

The coast guard aircraft was preparing to leave for Niigata to transport relief supplies for victims of a powerful earthquake that struck the Noto Peninsula the previous day.

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The Japan Airlines’ Airbus A350 erupts in a fireball after the Jan. 2 collision at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. (REUTERS)

Stop bar lights are turned on until an aircraft is cleared for takeoff. When air traffic controllers give clearance, they turn off the red lights and switch on lights at the center of a taxiway.

At Haneda Airport, stop bar lights are used when the range of visibility drops to 600 meters or less, or when controllers judge they are necessary, according to the transport ministry.

A ministry official said the range of visibility was more than 5,000 meters at the time of the accident.

“Even if stop bar lights had been in service, conditions for using them would not have been met,” the official said.

Stop bar lights were installed at Haneda Airport in 1998. They are used at 13 other airports nationwide.

An annex to the Convention on International Civil Aviation says runway incursions may occur “in all visibility or weather conditions.”

It states: “The provision of stop bars at runway-holding positions and their use at night and in visibility conditions greater than 550-meter runway visual range can form part of effective runway incursion prevention measures.”

Yoichiro Hatta, 75, a former Japan Airlines pilot, said stop bar lights are effective if they are used daily as countermeasures against runway incursions.

“(The routine use) will increase costs and the workload of air traffic controllers, but it is necessary never to repeat such an accident,” he said.

Hatta said he was able to smoothly proceed with takeoffs at unfamiliar airports overseas where he was assisted by taxiway lights and stop bar lights.

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