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JAKARTA : At least 49 people were killed when an Indonesian plane burst into flames upon landing in the central city of Yogyakarta on Wednesday, according to a provincial spokesman.
Witnesses said the front wheel of the Garuda Indonesia plane burst as it touched down, causing flames to shoot into the air and triggering a series of explosions which sent the aircraft skidding off the runway.
Australian diplomats and journalists covering Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's visit to Indonesia were among those on the flight from the capital Jakarta.
Downer was not on board, Australian officials confirmed.
"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," he added.
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 blue colours of Garuda, Indonesia's national carrier, was almost sheared off.
Transport Minister Hatta Rajasa told Metro TV station that the plane was carrying 133 passengers and there were 76 confirmed survivors.
Reports said seven crew were also on board.
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.
"I was sleeping then the plane slammed twice and I heard people screaming. It was dark and there was smoke everywhere. I saw many passengers hurt," said Din Syamsuddin, the chairman of Indonesian Muslim movement Muhammadiyah, who was on the plane.
"I was sitting not far from the emergency door. I felt someone guide me to the right," he said. "There were many people inside the plane when I got out."
Ngadiman, a witness to the accident, told the detikcom news website: "The front wheel burst, then there was an explosion from the front and then the rear wheels burnt as well."
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 injured people had been taken to a separate, air force hospital near the airport, a Metro TV report 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.
The Australians on the aircraft included one foreign affairs department official, a federal policeman and "at least five media representatives", Sky television reported from Canberra.
It was believed some of the Australians had survived, but further details were not available, Sky said.
The Japanese government said it believed at least two Japanese nationals were on board.
The city of Yogyakarta, which lies 450 kilometres (280 miles) southeast of Jakarta, is renowned as the centre of classical Javanese art and culture.
Indonesia's flight safety record has come under renewed scrutiny since an Adam Air Boeing 737-400 with 102 people on board crashed into the sea off the island of Sulawesi on New Year's Day with no survivors.
Last Friday a Boeing 737-200 operated by local Indonesian carrier Merpati Nusantara was forced to make an emergency landing on Batam Island after the pilot reported a dangerous oil leak. - AFP/ch
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