TAIPEI: Taiwan's China Airlines said Monday that all 163 passengers and crew escaped safely after their plane burst into flames on landing at an airport on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa.

"All the 155 passengers and eight crew members have safely escaped from the plane," China Airlines spokesman Johnson Wang told reporters.

He said the Boeing 737-800 from Taiwan had landed on Okinawa as scheduled.

"Everything was normal, including take-off and landing, until the pilots were told the airplane was on fire."

"Then the crew on board immediately took the due procedure to evacuate all the passengers."

Wang said it was not immediately clear what caused the blaze, but that the airline would conduct safety check on the other 11 737-800s it operates. - AFP/ac