Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

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Gregory Polek

Tuesday’s collision between a Japan Coast Guard de Havilland Dash 8 positioned on the runway for takeoff and a landing Japan Airlines (JAL) Airbus A350 at Tokyo Haneda Airport served as a stark reminder of last year’s spate of ground incursions at airports around the world.
Five of the six Coast Guard personnel in the Dash 8 died in the crash with the A350-900, which had landed at 5:47 p.m. local time following a flight from the Japanese city of Sapporo's New Chitose Airport. Although the Airbus became engulfed in flames within a matter of seconds, all 367 passengers and 12 crewmembers managed to escape the wreckage alive.
A statement from Airbus indicated that the precise circumstances of the crash remain unknown. Airbus delivered the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-powered airliner, registered as JA13XJ and identified as MSN538, on Nov. 10, 2021.
In a statement issued early local time on Wednesday, JAL said that air traffic controllers at Haneda had given its flight crew clearance to land at Haneda before they initiated the approach and landing. The airline also reported that the A350's cabin announcement system had malfunctioned during the evacuation of passengers, prompting cabin crew to use megaphones and their voices to issue instructions.
In line with&nbsp;International Civil Aviation Organization&nbsp;(ICAO) Annex 13 recommendations, Airbus said it will provide technical assistance to the Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses (BEA) of France and to the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB), which has taken charge of the investigation. The manufacturer said it will dispatch a team of specialists to Japan to assist the authorities. The BEA said it will send a team of four investigators and five technical personnel.
Aviation authorities worldwide last year began examining possible common threads between the elevated number of ground incursions. In the U.S., the FAA issued a Safety Alert for Operators (SAFO) in March after six “serious” runway near-collisions occurred during the first three months of 2023. Since then, the agency established a safety review team focusing on runway safety efforts; held a runway safety summit with aviation industry stakeholders; re-examined data for similar serious incursions to identify trends; and awarded more than $100 million in grants to 12 airports to reduce incursions.
This story was updated early on January 3 to include information released by Japan Airlines about the accident.&nbsp;

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