A Chinese passenger jet crashed

A Chinese passenger jet crashed while trying to land on a fog-shrouded runwayin the country’s northeast and burst into flames late, killing 42 people and injuring 54 others, state media said Wednesday.

Wang Xuemei, vice mayor of Yichun, told Chinese television that three of the 48 hospitalized were in critical condition but gave no specifics.The

plane had taken off from Heilongjiang’s capital of Harbin shortly before 9pm and crashed during landing at the Lindu airport a little more than an hour later.

Xinhua quoted Hua Jingwei, an Yichun publicity official, as saying that some passengers were thrown from the cabin before the broken plane hit the ground.

The Brazilian-made Embraer E-190 jet had taken off from Heilongjiang’s capital of Harbin shortly before 9 p.m. (1300 GMT) and crashed a little more than an hour later, Xinhua said.

A middle-aged man who survived the crash told China Central Television there was bad turbulence as the plane descended, then several big jolts that caused the luggage to come crashing down from the overhead bins.

“After we stopped, the people in the back were panicking and rushed to the front,” the unidentified man, who had no visible injuries, said in an interview from a hospital bed. “We were trying to open the (emergency exits) but they wouldn’t open. Then the smoke came in … within two or three minutes or even a minute, we couldn’t breathe. I knew something bad was going to happen.”

An official surnamed Qi at the Yichun No. 1 People’s Hospital said 30 people had been brought there for treatment, with most suffering broken bones.

A man who would only give his surname, Wang, at the Yichun Rehabilitation Hospital, which has burn specialists on site, said 10 survivors were transferred there with burn injuries.

Another eight survivors were at the Yichun Forestry Hospital, said a duty officer surnamed Zhou. He said he did not know the nature of their injuries.

There were five children and five crew members on board, Xinhua cited an unnamed official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China as saying. It was not known how many of them survived.

Related External Links

• Hot Air » Bad news: Chinese commuters stuck in … nine-day traffic jam
• A Chinese passenger jet crashed | infolitnow
• A Chinese passenger jet crashed | infolitnow
• A Chinese passenger jet crashed | infolitnow