The Japan Airlines evacuation succeeded even though the intercom broke and 5 of 8 emergency exits were unusable

• A Japan Airlines flight collided with another plane when landing in Tokyo on Tuesday.
• All 379 passengers and crew managed to escape before the aircraft was engulfed in flames.
• The airline said the plane's intercom system wasn't working and people evacuated through 3 exits.

All 379 passengers and crew managed to escape a burning Japanese Airlines plane despite the intercom system breaking and more than half the emergency exits being unusable.

In a statement Tuesday, Japan Airlines said that Flight 516 had received permission to land when it collided with a Coast Guard plane and burst into flames.

It also released new details of how the crew was able to clear the plane in a short amount of time before the flames engulfed the Airbus 350-900.

The airline said that the plane's intercom system stopped working, and there were only three workable exits for getting passengers to safety. An Airbus 350-900 is designed to have eight emergency exits plus a cockpit escape hatch.

"The aircraft's announcement system malfunctioned during the evacuation, so cabin crew members conducted instructions using a megaphone and their voices," said spokesperson Maggie Kuwasaki.

"Cabin crew members determined safe exits for evacuation, and all passengers and crew members evacuated through three emergency exits."

According to the BBC, three inflatable slides were used to evacuate passengers but, because of how the jet landed, they were not deployed correctly.

Footage from inside the plane showed passengers evacuating as smoke began to fill the cabin.

A Swedish teenager who was on the plane told the outlet Aftonbladet, "The entire cabin was filled with smoke within a few minutes," the Associated Press reported.

"The smoke in the cabin stung like hell. It was a hell," he said, adding they threw themselves at the emergency doors once they opened. "We have no idea where we are going, so we just run out into the field. It was chaos."

Airline safety experts told Business Insider that the plane's crew appeared to have done an exceptional job in ensuring everyone on got out safely.

Graham Braithwaite, an expert on flight safety at Cranfield University in the UK, said the airline had placed an intense emphasis on staff training and safety after a 1985 Japan Airlines crash, the worst single-plane crash in aviation history.

Only 17 passengers suffered minor injuries on the jet. Five of the crew of the Coast Guard plane the jet collided with died, and a sixth was seriously injured.