All 165 passengers and crew successfully evacuated a Boeing jet today, moments before it burst into flames.

The China Airlines plane exploded near the Naha airport terminal building in Okinawa, Japan. A spokesman for the Taiwanese airline said the Boeing 737 caught alight after it skidded on the tarmac on its way to a gate after landing.

"The fire started when the left engine exploded a minute after the aircraft entered the parking spot," the transport ministry official AhihikoTamura said.

Airport traffic controllers had received no report from the pilot that anything was wrong, he said.

The 157 passengers - including two small children- evacuated the plane on inflated emergency slides. One member of the ground crew was injured, Kyodo news agency reported. A fire official, Hiroki Shimabukuro, said two passengers - a seven-year-old girl and a man in his 50s - had been taken to hospital because they felt ill, but they were uninjured. Police said terrorism was not suspected.

Early investigations raised the possibility that leaking fuel may have caught fire.

"There is a possibility of the engine exploding and catching fire due to a fuel leak," a Naha airport police official told Reuters.

The fire was put out about an hour later, leaving the aircraft charred and mangled.

Several passengers interviewed by the broadcaster NHK said were they were preparing to get off the plane after what seemed like an ordinary landing when they were told to use the emergency slides to evacuate. Some said they saw smoke and flames entering the cabin and that they heard explosions minutes after they left the aeroplane.

The head of Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration, Chang Kuo-cheng, said China Airlines and its subsidiary Mandarin Airlines had been ordered to ground their 13 other Boeing 737-800s pending a full inspection.

"If there was a fire, it might have something to do with an oil leak," Mr Chang said, noting that the exact cause was not known.

The Okinawa fire is a setback to China Airlines, which in recent years appeared to have improved on a troubled safety record among international carriers.

A China Airlines 747 crashed in 2002 as it flew from Taipei to Hong Kong, causing 225 deaths, and some 450 people died in China Airlines accidents during the 1990s.