HoooooooooooHummmmmmmmmmmmmm
From the Sydney Morning Herald
Plane bursts into flames
August 20, 2007 - 1:24PM
A China Airlines jet exploded into flames at an airport in Japan after arriving from Taiwan today, but there were no injuries among the 157 passengers.
At least two crew members were rushed to a hospital, national broadcaster NHK said.
All the passengers disembarked from the Boeing 737 before the fire began, a Japanese Transport Ministry official and a China Airlines official in Taipei said.
Local fire official, Eri Terukina, said the two pilots escaped, while NHK reported that all six flight attendants also made it off the plane alive.
"The fire started when the first engine below the main left wing exploded, a minute after the aircraft entered the parking spot," Transport Ministry official Akihiko Tamura said.
Tamura put the number of passengers at 157, updating the figure of 155 initially provided by China Airlines.
Flight CI120 burst into flames at Naha, on the southern island of Okinawa.
NHK showed footage of a squad of fire engines and firefighters dousing the plane with extinguishers as flames and clouds of black smoke billowed from the fuselage.
"After the plane landed, there were flames, and I heard explosions a few times then saw black smoke," airport worker Hideaki Oyadomari told NHK. "We felt the hot air coming our way."
The cause of the fire, which reportedly began in one of the engines, was unknown. Japan's National Police Agency said terrorism was not suspected.
The Okinawa fire is a setback to China Airlines, which in recent years appeared to have improved on its formerly unenviable safety record among international carriers.
A China Airlines 747 crashed in 2002 as it flew from Taipei to Hong Kong, leading to 225 deaths, and about 450 people died in China Airlines accidents during the 1990s.