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Five people aboard a coastguard aircraft were killed when their plane collided with a Japan Airlines passenger jet coming in to land at Tokyo's Haneda International Airport, with only one crewmember managing to escape with severe injuries.

Coastguard flight MA-722 aircraft, a Bombardier Dash-8, was struck by JAL flight 516 - a much larger Airbus A-350 - on runway C at Haneda, with both planes immediately erupting into flames.

Shocking footage showed the Japan Airlines jet engulfed in a raging inferno as it sat on the runway with gouts of flame seen pouring out of the passenger windows.

One horrific clip showed the flames licking from the airliner's main cabin door as twisted bits of metal fell from the fuselage onto the tarmac, while another showed passengers sprinting along the runway to escape the blaze, running away from the engines which were spitting out chunks of flaming debris.

Images from the scene showed how the passenger escape slide protruding from one of the airliner's doors was set ablaze as more flames burned within the cabin, and the aircraft's hull later split in two as the fire melted through huge chunks of its bodywork.

Miraculously, all 379 passengers and crew aboard the Japan Airlines flight were successfully evacuated from the stricken plane, a JAL spokesman said, but most of the crew in the much smaller Bombardier did not survive the crash.

The Jiji news agency reported the coastguard plane was set to leave to help with rescue efforts following a massive earthquake in central Japan on New Year's Day, with the five deaths of the crewmembers further compounding the tragedy.