China, August 25: At least 42 people were killed and 49 injured on Tuesday night after a passenger aircraft crashed in the Yichun city of Heilongjiang province northeast China.
The E-190 jet of Henan Airlines crashed at 9.36 p.m while landing at the airport. The aircraft had taken off from Harbin city.
The plane was carrying 91 passengers, including five children and five crew members.
Forty nine people who survived the crash, were admitted to various hospitals for treatment.
The plane which left the provincial capital Harbin at about 8:51 pm landed in thick fog and was engulfed in blaze followed by explosion after it crash landed according to some of the surviving passengers.
Most of the injured were being treated for various external injuries, which were not life threatening, doctors said.
Some of the survivors of the crash told state television that the plane experienced violent jerks while landing.The jerks were so severe that the luggage from the overhead compartments started falling down.
Most of the survivors managed to escape through the front exit which was opened before it caught fire and exploded.
The captain of the turbine jet was alive and recuperating in a local hospital, Xinhua reported.
But Capt Qi Quanjun, lying on a hospital bed with tubes tucked around his body appeared traumatised and was unable to talk to the media.It appeared that Qi could understand the questions, but he had difficulties in talking due to severe face injuries, doctors said.
Meanwhile, the airport was enveloped with thick fog.
Family members of the passengers were seen waiting anxiously at an open ground as the bodies of those killed were being shifted out of wreckage.
China had kept a remarkable air travel safety record of 2,100 days or 69 months without accidents before a passenger plane crash in Heilongjiang province Tuesday night, official figures have revealed.
More than five years ago, a CRJ-200 jet, owned by China Eastern Airlines, crashed shortly after take-off into a park in Baotou city, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, killing all 53 people on board, say statistics from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
—Agencies