Chinese Passenger Plane Overshoots Runway, 43 Killed

M.today

Beijing, August 24 : A Chinese passenger plane with 96 people on board overshot a fog-shrouded runway at an airport in northwest China’s Heilongjiang Province on Tuesday night and burst into flames killing 43 of them and injuring 53 others, the state media said. 

The ill-fated aircraft of the Henan Airlines crashed as it was to land at the Lindu airport in Yichun, said officials with Heilongjiang provincial government.

The airport was shrouded in fog when the incident took place.  The bodies of 43 passengers were recovered from the wreckage of the plane, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. 

Another 53 injured passengers have been hospitalised, Hua Jingwei, head of the publicity department of the Yichun city committee of the ruling Communist Party of China said.  There were 96 passengers, including five children, and five crew members on board,  officials with Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) were quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency. 

Earlier reports said the E-90 aircraft of Henan Airlines, with plate number VD8387, had 91 passengers on board.  The E-190 jet, manufactured by the Brazilian aerospace conglomerate Embraer, crashed near the runaway of the airport in Yichun City at 9:36 pm (local time).  The plane took off shortly before 9 pm from the provincial capital Harbin. Fire engines, ambulances, and trucks carrying rescuers have arrived at the scene. 

Henan Airlines is based in the central Chinese province of the same name and flies smaller regional jets, mainly on routes in north and northeast China.  The last major passenger jet crash in China was in November 2004, when an China Eastern airplane plunged into a lake in northern China, killing all 53 on board and two on the ground.

PTI