Police launched an investigation Friday into a bad landing made the previous day by a Japan Air System airplane at the airport on Tokunoshima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture.
Two passengers suffered slight injuries in the incident.
Tokunoshima airport remains closed, meanwhile, with the MD-81 airplane still in the middle of the 2,000-meter runway.
Flight 979, carrying 163 passengers and six crew members from Kagoshima airport, landed at Tokunoshima shortly after 4:20 p.m. Thursday and tilted to the left, causing the left wing to touch the runway.
The buckling of a base leg was the cause of the bad landing, according to the officials.
After the plane landed and traveled down the runway for about 1,000 meters, the base leg on the left side buckled and the wheels turned backward, they said. The plane has been in use since August 1990.