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Plane on fire at Japanese airport Plane gutted at Japanese airport
(about 2 hours later)
A Taiwanese China Airlines passenger plane has been destroyed by fire at an airport on the island of Okinawa, in the south of Japan. A Taiwanese China Airlines plane burst into flames after landing on Japan's island of Okinawa but all 165 people on board are safe, officials say.
TV pictures showed the Boeing 737 on the tarmac at Naha airport, with flames and smoke billowing from it as firefighters doused the fuselage. All the passengers and crew had just been evacuated when the fire broke out on the Boeing 737-800 at Naha airport.
Japanese officials and police said that all the passengers and crew were safe. TV pictures showed flames and smoke billowing from the plane as firefighters doused the fuselage.
The plane had flown in from Taipei carrying more than 150 passengers. It is not clear what caused the blaze. Some reports said the left engine had caught fire, although the airline said the cause was not yet known.
"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. "Everything was normal, including take-off and landing, until the pilots were told the airplane was on fire," China Airlines spokesman Johnson Sun said.
Witnesses reported hearing loud explosions as passengers were being evacuated. "Then the crew on board immediately took the due procedure to evacuate all the passengers."
Major setback
The plane had been on a routine flight from the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, to the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, carrying 157 passengers and eight crew.
Airport officials told Kyodo news agency that black smoke and fire could be seen billowing from the plane just eight minutes after it had landed.
Once the fire had been extinguished, an hour later, the plane was found to have broken into two.
Japanese TV initially reported that two crew members were rushed to hospital, but airline officials said all eight crew were safe.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 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. The airline suffered several crashes during the 1990s, and in 2002 one of its fleet crashed into the sea near the island of Penghu with 225 passengers and crew on board.