Survivors of an aircraft crash described their escape from the burning fuselage seconds before it exploded in a fireball yesterday, killing at least 22 people trapped on board.

Many of the 115 who escaped suffered burns and serious injuries, when the Garuda Indonesia Boeing 737-400 skidded off a runway at high speed and burst into flames in a rice field.

Witnesses said that the aircraft was approaching the notoriously dangerous airport at Yogyakarta too quickly on a sharp descent.

“We realised that something was wrong when the plane started approaching the runway without slowing down,” said one survivor, Alessandro Bertolleti, a journalist for the Italian broadcaster Rai. “Once we touched down it jumped a bit and still didn’t slow down. At that point everyone knew that there was something wrong. It became dark, objects started flying around, people started screaming.

“A fire started three or four seats in front of me, on the right-hand side of the plane. Everyone started screaming.

“A woman behind me kept pushing me and saying, ‘Go! Go! Go!’ Luckily I was close to the emergency exit and I jumped out, together with many other people.

“Soon another explosion followed. After the second explosion I didn’t see more people jumping out of the plane.”

Among those missing, feared dead, were one member of the flight crew, one Australian journalist and four Australian government officials travelling to the city for a visit by Alexander Downer, the Foreign Minister, and Philip Ruddock, the Attorney-General.

The 15-year-old aircraft crashed as it landed at about 7am local time after the 50-minute flight from Jakarta, the capital. Witnesses in the aircraft and on the ground said that it shook violently as it came in to land and that its nosewheel was in flames as it touched down, apparently causing it to career out of control off the end of the runway, through a fence and into an adjacent field. The Indonesian Government began an investigation into the causes of the crash, but there was no immediate suggestion of foul play.

“The plane was too fast or overspeeding, so it ran about 300 metres off the runway,” First Air Marshal Benyamin Dandel, the air force commander at Yogyakarta airport, said.

Most of the 140 passengers and crew were able evacuate the airliner, some even stopping to retrieve their hand luggage before jumping out. But the fire quickly spread and there was a loud explosion, apparently caused by the detonation of a fuel tank.

Among the survivors was a cameraman for the Seven Network of Australia, who filmed weeping passengers as they ran away from the black smoke enveloping the jet. It took hours to extinguish the fire.

“Suddenly there was smoke inside the fuselage, it hit the runway and then it landed in a rice field,” said Din Syamsudin, the head of Muhammadiyah, the national Islamic organisation, who was bound for a meeting with Mr Downer.

Nineteen foreigners were on board the Boeing, including nine Australian journalists and diplomats travelling to Yogyakarta. Among those named by the Australian Government as missing were Brice Steele, one of the country’s top terrorism experts, Morgan Mellish, the Jakarta correspondent of The Australian Financial Review, Elizabeth O’Neill, public affairs counsellor at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, and Alison Sudrajat, AusAID director at the Australian Embassy.

Cynthia Banham, of the Australian Fairfax group of newspapers, survived with burns and was evacuated to Australia. “She was very distressed. She thought she was going to die,” Mark Forber, a colleague, told Australian radio. “She talked about burning alive and people being burnt alive.”

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