CHINA: A China Eastern commuter plane crashed into a frozen lake seconds after take-off in Inner Mongolia yesterday, killing 53 people on board and one on the ground, the airline and state media said.
"Witnesses said that the plane broke into flaming fragments, a house beside the park was damaged by the falling aircraft and several yachts nearby were scorched," Xinhua news agency said.
It quoted one witness as saying the plane was trailing black smoke and rocking violently when there was an explosion and the plane crashed and broke apart.
Xinhua said the plane smashed through a ticket office at a park and state television said one person on the ground was killed.
The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ200, flown by two pilots, took off from the industrial city of Baotou, nearly 600 km (370 miles) west of Beijing, en route to eastern Shanghai, China Eastern Airlines said on its website.
The weather was clear when the plane, operated by a unit of China Eastern crashed into the lake in Nanhai Park at 8.20 a.m., an airport official said.
More than 400 people, including firefighters, police officers, park staff and a 20-member diving team joined the rescue work.
State television showed pictures of rescuers pulling debris from below the broken ice. The remains of 46 victims were found but not the black box flight recorders, Xinhua said. Police cordoned off the park, two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the runway.
China Eastern had grounded all of its CRJ200s until further notice, Xinhua said. It did not say how many the company flew, only that there were 29 in China flown by seven airlines.
An airline spokesman said that an investigation was under way.
"High-standard hospitals in Baotou have made arrangements for receiving the remains of victims. And doctors and nurses are providing medical and related services for families of the dead," Xinhua said.
It said the passengers were all Chinese except for one Indonesian and an investigation team had flown from Beijing to Baotou.
"No name list of the victims is available, yet local informed sources said that one of them was the chairman of a renowned company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange," Xinhua said.
China's last major airplane crash was on May 7th, 2002, when a China Northern flight from Beijing to Dalian fell into the sea, killing 112 people, after the pilot reported a fire in the cabin.