At least 49 dead in Indonesia plane disaster

INDONESIA: A Boeing 737-400 passenger jet burst into flames when it landed at Yogyakarta in central Indonesia on Wednesday, killing at least 49 people and leaving dozens more burnt and wounded, officials said.

Witnesses said the front wheel of the Garuda Indonesia plane blew out as it touched down, sending flames shooting into the air and triggering a series of explosions that sent the aircraft skidding off the runway.

Australian diplomats and journalists covering Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s visit to Indonesia were among the 140 people on the flight from the capital Jakarta. Four of them were unaccounted for, Downer told CNN.

At least 49 people were killed, including one person who died en route to hospital, local government spokesman Bambang, who goes by one name, told the Detikcom news website.

The rest of those on board, including the seven crew, were pulled out alive from the wreckage of the plane, the state Antara news agency said, quoting local officials.

Television pictures showed firefighters battling giant flames and thick smoke spewing from the broken fuselage as it lay smouldering in the grass off the end of the runway.

The tailfin bearing the colours of Garuda, Indonesia’s national carrier, was almost sheared off.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said up to 10 Australians were aboard the plane.

“I saw many bodies, dozens of bodies badly burnt near the exit,” Captain Yos Bintoro, an airport official, told Elshinta radio. “I saw people dead in the cockpit.”

Transport Minister Hatta Rajasa told Indonesia’s Metro TV earlier that there had been 76 confirmed survivors.

The incident is just the latest in a series of crashes and safety scares involving Indonesian airliners which have forced the government to set up a team to urgently improve transport safety.

Dozens of injured people were taken to hospital.

“16 people were brought into the hospital, with injuries ranging from bad to minor,” Paulus, from the Panti Rini hospital, told ElShinta.

Around 50 others were taken to a separate air force hospital near the airport, Metro TV said.

One of the injured is a foreign correspondent from the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper and was being operated on, said Widodo, a doctor at Sarjito Hospital.

Jakarta, Wednesday, AFP