CHINA – A PASSENGER jet crashed in northeast China yesterday, overshooting the runway and bursting into flames, killing at least 43 of 96 on board, in what was one of the nation’s worst air disaster in years.
The Henan Airlines aircraft crashed in Yichun, a small city in Heilongjiang province, after flying from Harbin, the province’s capital, state media said.
Forty-three bodies had been found at the site where the aircraft split apart last night at Yichun airport, a city official told the China news service, Xinhua.
The other 53 on board “have all been taken to hospital for treatment, and at present none is in danger of loss of life”, the report stated. Their injuries included burns, cuts and broken limbs.
“The plane split apart on grass 1½km from the runway and a small explosion happened as it did,” Sun Bangnan, a deputy chief of police in Heilongjiang, told Xinhua.
Other Chinese news reports, citing unnamed witnesses or sources, said the plane began to fall apart or burst into flames before it overshot the runway.
Chinese media reports indicated there were 91 passengers and five crew aboard. The plane was an Embraer 190, said Xinhua.
The accident was a jolt for China’s fast-growing aviation sector, which has escaped disaster for several years thanks to relatively young fleets and stricter safety rules.
Vice-premier Zhang Dejiang, the most senior official overseeing safety issues, headed to the disaster, according to Xinhua.
China’s last major civilian aircraft crash was in 2004, when a CRJ200 operated by China Eastern Airlines came down in a frozen lake in northern inner Mongolia shortly after take-off, resulting in the death of more than 50 people.
In 2002, a China Northern flight from Beijing to the port city of Dalian crashed into the sea after the pilot reported a fire in the cabin, killing 112 people.
Yichun airport is a small domestic airstrip that opened only last year, and is one of an increasing number of airports built in remote parts of China to help boost economic development.
Henan Airlines is a small regional carrier controlled by Shenzhen Airlines, which is part-owned by Air China. The airline is based in Henan, a province in central China.
It changed its name from Kunpeng Airlines earlier this year and flies domestic routes using the Brazilian-made Embraer.
– (Reuters)