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Plane on fire at Japanese airport Plane on fire at Japanese airport
(about 1 hour later)
A Taiwanese China Airlines plane has caught fire at an airport on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. A Taiwanese China Airlines passenger plane has been destroyed by fire at an airport on the island of Okinawa, in the south of Japan.
TV pictures showed the Boeing 737 passenger plane on the tarmac with huge flames and smoke billowing from it, as firefighters doused the fuselage. TV pictures showed the Boeing 737 on the tarmac at Naha airport, with flames and smoke billowing from it as firefighters doused the fuselage.
A Japanese transport ministry official said all the passengers had left the aircraft before the fire started. There were also no crew members on board. Japanese officials and police said that all the passengers and crew were safe.
The plane had flown in from Taipei with more than 150 passengers on board. The plane had flown in from Taipei carrying more than 150 passengers. It is not clear what caused the blaze.
"The fire started when the first engine below the main left wing exploded, a minute after the aircraft entered the parking spot," the transport ministry's Akihiko Tamura told the Associated Press.
Witnesses reported hearing loud explosions as passengers were being evacuated.
Japanese TV initially reported that two crew members were rushed to hospital, but airline officials said all eight crew were safe.
China Airlines spokesman Sun Hung-wen said the cause of the fire was under investigation.
The BBC's Caroline Gluck in Taipei says the incident is a major setback for the Taiwanese flag carrier, which once had one of the worst safety records for international airlines.
The airline suffered several crashes during the 1990s, and in 2002 some 225 passengers died when one of its fleet crashed into the sea near the island of Penghu.