All safe after plane inferno

Monday Aug 20 12:22 AEST

A Taiwanese passenger plane burst into fire moments after landing in = southern=20 Japan but all passengers and crew made a dramatic escape as flames = engulfed the=20 jet.

Giant flames and plumes of black smoke erupted from the China = Airlines jet=20 just eight minutes after it had landed from Taipei at Naha airport on = Okinawa=20 island.

Firefighters sprayed hoses full of foam on the aircraft, which turned = into=20 little more than a charred skeleton that had collapsed into pieces, = television=20 footage showed.

Two people were taken to = hospital=20 but the extent of their injuries was not clear, a fire department = spokesman=20 said.

The blaze was=20 triggered by a fire in an engine, officials said.

"When the fire broke out there was a huge bang and passengers were = still in=20 the midst of evacuating," witness Toshimasa Yamamoto told Tokyo = Broadcasting=20 System.

"When the passengers appeared to be finishing the evacuation, the = fire=20 engulfed the entire plane. It really was a close call," he said.

All 157 passengers were safe, as were the two pilots and six crew = members,=20 officials said.

"All 157 passengers evacuated through the emergency slides," said = Akihiko=20 Tamura, a transport ministry official in Tokyo.

"As for the crew members, we have confirmed that all eight are alive. = There=20 is information that one of them is injured and we are still looking into = how=20 serious the injury is," he told a news conference.

Authorities had earlier said they could not confirm the whereabouts = of four=20 crew members.

In Taipei, China Airlines also confirmed the safety of all = passengers. The=20 airline put the passenger number at 155, not including two infants = without=20 tickets.

"Everything was normal, including take-off and landing, until the = pilots were=20 told the airplane was on fire," China Airlines spokesman Johnson Wang = told=20 reporters.

He said the Boeing 737-800 from Taiwan had landed on Okinawa as=20 scheduled.

"Then the crew on board immediately took the due procedure to = evacuate all=20 the passengers," Wang said.

Once the flames were doused, firefighters in protective gear could be = seen=20 climbing into the ruins of the aircraft searching for any survivors or=20 victims.

The fire broke out at 10:35 am and lasted for nearly an hour, = officials=20 said.

The transport ministry said it started in an engine on the left wing = of the=20 plane, and that there were no indications it was a terrorist attack.

Okinawa, a subtropical island which lies closer to Taiwan than Tokyo, = is a=20 popular tourist destination and is ordinarily packed with Japanese = visitors=20 during the ongoing summer holiday season.

The incident will likely rekindle memories in Japan of a major crash = by a=20 China Airlines plane in 1994. In that incident, 264 people were killed = as the=20 Airbus A300 nosedived on landing in the central Japanese city of=20 Nagoya.

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