A passenger jet belonging to Taiwan based China Airlines was completely destroyed by fire shortly after landing at Naha airport in the southern Japanese province of Okinawa on Monday.
However there were no casualties amongst the 157 passengers and eight crewmembers. All those on board Flight CI-120 from Tapei managed to evacuate the aircraft safely via emergency slides after the fire broke out as the as the plane taxied to its parking spot.
This passenger described what happened.
"We smelt the smoke, the smoke of burning at the beginning, then we saw fire on both sides of the wing. When it started to burn, we saw the engine part had a few continuous explosions after our evacuation."
China Airlines officials said the fire started in the port engine of the Boeing 737-800 about eight minutes after it landed.
Japanese TV footage showed smoke billowing from a fire that spread to the two engines followed by three explosions which brought the planes' fuselage to the ground and left it a burnt out hulk.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation and China Airlines has grounded all its 737-800 jets for thorough inspections.
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