The plane, operated by local carrier Mandala Airlines, was carrying 112 passengers and five crew and several bystanders, said Asril Tanjung, the airline’s director. The cause of the crash in Medan city was being investigated, but foul play was highly unlikely, he said. “According to reports I have received, there are no passengers who can be found. I heard no passengers survived but I need to check this myself,” Tanjung said.

The plane slammed into the heart of a major residential area in the capital of North Sumatra province, breaking into pieces, setting fire to homes, cars and motorbikes, and sparking widespread panic, witnesses said. Hospital officials said some of the dead were bystanders. “I arrived around 10 minutes after the accident. Burning bodies were everywhere,” one local reporter said from the scene. “Around 10 houses were burned, along with five to six minibuses. The plane was torn into pieces, we could only see the tail.”

Survivors on the ground ran about frantically screaming the names of their relatives, added the reporter. Edi Sofyan, a spokesman for the North Sumatra government, said the governor of the province was on board the flight. Fierce flames licked at the wreckage as it lay on one of Medan’s main roads before fire crews were able to extinguish the blazes. Plumes of thick black smoke rose into the air.

<B>“The plane slammed into the heart of a major residential area in the capital of North Sumatra province, breaking into pieces, setting fire to homes and cars.”</B>

Roni, an emergency room nurse at Medan’s Adam Malik hospital, said it was chaos as victims were brought in. Other hospital officials said most were burnt beyond recognition. “Ambulances keep going back and forth bringing the victims, who are both passengers and residents. Some are still alive, some are dead,” Roni told Reuters.

Medan, 1,425 km (885 miles) northwest of Jakarta, is Indonesia’s third biggest city and is also the main gateway for aid into tsunami-hit Aceh province. Mandala’s Tanjung said the plane had been made in 1981 and was fit for eight more years of flying. “Temporarily, we are saying the cause is from take-off failure but we don’t know yet whether it was from engine trouble, human error or weather,” Tanjung told Reuters.

The plane came down 500 metres (1,640 feet) from the runway in Medan, Transport Minister Hatta Radjasa told El Shinta radio station. It was en route to Jakarta. Mandala Airlines is one of Indonesia’s oldest private carriers, operating a number of Boeing 737s. It competes in a crowded and competitive market since the establishment of numerous budget airlines in the past five years. Indonesia’s worst air crash occurred in September 1997, when a Garuda Airbus A-300B4 crashed in a mountainous area near Medan, killing all 222 passengers and 12 crew on board.

FACT BOX

<B>Indonesia’s worst air disasters</B>

■ <B> Nov. 30, 2004: </B>A Lion Air MD-82 plane carrying 146 passengers and seven crew skids off a rain-slick runway at Solo in central Java, killing 31 people and injuring dozens more.

■ <B> Nov 7, 2002 </B>- A small passenger plane crashes two minutes after taking off for Juwita Tarakan airport in East Kalimantan province, killing six of the nine people on board.

■ <B> Dec 19, 1997</B> - All 104 people on board a Singapore SilkAir Boeing 737-300 are killed when it crashes near the Sumatran city of Palembang.

■ <B> Sept. 26, 1997</B> - A Garuda Airbus A-300B4 crashes in a mountainous area of northern Sumatra near Medan. All 222 passengers and 12 crew are killed in Indonesia’s worst-ever air disaster.