December 3, 2009
JAKARTA (AFP) - At least six passengers were injured Thursday when they jumped off an Indonesian jet as it prepared to take off from Bali, falsely believing the plane was on fire, an airline official said.
The Batavia Air Boeing 737 carrying 148 passengers and six crew was about to leave the terminal at the resort island's main airport, en route to Surabaya city in East Java, when the incident happened at 11:45 am (0345 GMT).
"Some passengers saw smoke coming out from the plane's right side. They screamed and shouted that the plane was on fire," airline spokesman Eddy Haryanto told AFP.
"That caused other passengers to panic and rush to the emergency exit. They forced open the door and jumped off the plane," he said.
Six injured passengers were sent to hospital, the spokesman said, adding their condition was unknown.
"There was no fire, it was only smoke from the exhaust and that's normal as the pilot had just started up the engines," Haryanto said.
Indonesia, which relies heavily on air links to connect its sprawling archipelago of islands, has one of Asia's worst air safety records.
