14 Apr 2013

Crash landing at Bali

5:24 am on 14 April 2013

All passengers and crew survived when a Lion Air Boeing 737 missed the runway on the Indonesian resort island of Bali and landed in shallow water on Saturday afternoon.

Transport Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said the plane landed in the sea before reaching the airport. The incident happened at about 3pm.

Lion Air said the aircraft had flown from Bandung, West Java, to Bali Ngurah Rai airport. There were 101 passengers and seven crew on board.

The runway at Bali international airport starts next to the sea. The island is Indonesia's main tourist destination, especially popular with Australians for its surfing.

TV footage showed the jet floating in shallow waters with a fractured fuselage and passengers in the water with life jackets.

Budget carrier Lion Air is Indonesia's largest airline and is rapidly expanding. The plane was delivered last month.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, Lion Air planes have been involved in six accidents since 2002, four of them involving Boeing 737s. Only one of them, according to the site, resulted in fatalities.