4 Killed, 52 Hurt as Jet Veers Off Runway at Japanese Airport

A DC-10 ran off a runway in southern Japan on takeoff today and burst into flames. At least four people were killed and 52 injured, officials said.

The jet carried about 260 passengers and a crew of 15, police said. Nationalities of the dead were not known.

The plane, which was bound for Jakarta, Indonesia, ran off the Fukuoka airport runway as it was taking off, said Hiroyuki Fuchigami, an airport police spokesman. The plane plowed through a fence, crossed two roads and came to rest in a muddy field, he said.

“As soon as the plane stopped, smoke burst in from both the front and the back--it was impossible to see anything,” a young male passenger on the Garuda Indonesia Airways jet told NHK.

Television footage showed plumes of black smoke rising from the plane’s fuselage as firefighters fought the blaze, trying to extinguish it with chemicals.

After the fire was brought under control, the middle of the fuselage was completely charred. Passengers were loaded onto stretchers and carried across the field.

Officials immediately closed the airport, and more than 60 emergency vehicles converged on the scene.

Tomohisa Tozaki of Garuda’s Tokyo office said the airline did not yet know why the accident occurred. The weather was cloudy with light winds at the time of the accident.

Fukuoka is 560 miles southwest of Tokyo.