Dozens escape after Indonesia jet burns on landing

Yogyakarta (Indonesia), Mar 7: Dozens of people escaped an inferno that erupted after an Indonesian passenger jet overshot the runway and burst into flames on landing in the cultural capital of Yogyakarta today.

Survivors said many passengers had escaped the flames, but a Reuters witness reported seeing four charred bodies taken from the wreckage of the Garuda 737-400 jetliner, which crashed at around 7 am (0530 hrs IST) after a scheduled flight from Jakarta.

Garuda officials told Reuters that 76 of the 140 passengers and crew aboard had been taken from the plane, although they could not confirm how many of those were alive or dead.

''Body bags have been prepared. That means we think there could be casualties,'' said Prasetyo Wignuwibowo, the head of the Indonesian Red Cross branch in Yogyakarta in central Java.

Australian officials said the flight was carrying a large group of Australian diplomats, government officials and journalists accompanying Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who was not aboard, on an official visit to Indonesia.

The crash came a day after two powerful earthquakes hit the neighbouring Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing at least 70 people.

Yogyakarta, around 440 kms southeast of the capital, Jakarta, is known as the cultural heart of Indonesia and very popular with tourists, although it is the off season at the moment.

Burst into flames

''It happened when it overshot beyond the runway and burst into flames,'' Yogyakarta Provincial Secretary Bambang Susanto told Reuters through texted messages. ''We know that there are passengers being treated at the air force hospital.'' Survivor Din Syamsudin, the head of Indonesia's second-largest Muslim organisation, Muhammadiyah, told Elshinta news radio of his lucky escape.

''Some passengers wanted to get their hand luggage. I cried to them, 'Get out, get out','' he said.

''The plane was full of smoke. I just jumped from two metres high and landed in a rice field.'' The plane's fuselage was reduced to a twisted, burnt shell, and thick white smoke spewed from the wreckage.

''I was sitting at the back of the plane and people started to jump out,'' Julianto, one of the survivors, told Metro TV.

''Many escaped the plane,'' he added.

Indonesia has suffered from a string of transport accidents in recent months, including an Adam Air plane that disappeared in January with 102 passengers and crew on board, and a ferry sinking in late December in which hundreds died.

The series of accidents had sparked the government to set up special commissions to look at the state of transportation safety in the sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands.

Reuters