Society

Captain of crashed plane alive, unable to talk

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-08-25 09:42

YICHUN, Heilongjiang - The captain of the turbine jet that crashed in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province late Tuesday is alive and recuperating in a local hospital.

But Qi Quanjun, lying on a hospital bed with tubes tucked around his body, was unable to talk sense when Xinhua reporters met him in the city hospital Wednesday.

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It appeared that Qi could understand the questions, but he had difficulties in talking due to severe face injuries, doctors said. He does not have life-threatening conditions.

Yichun Mayor Wang Aiwen on Wednesday corrected the death toll to 42 from the previously reported 43. Fifty-four others were injured, including seven severely, he said.

The injured are being treated in four medical institutes in the city.

In the fog-shrouded Lindu airport, rescuers on early Wednesday morning started to transfer victims' bodies, wrapped in silver bags, to funeral homes for identification.

Families were seen waiting anxiously at an open ground in front of the airport. Men smoked, women wailed.

The ERJ-190 jet, manufactured by the Brazilian aerospace conglomerate Embraer with maximum passenger capacity of 108, crashed near the runway of Lindu airport of Yichun at 9:36 p.m. Tuesday, some 40 minutes after it took off from the provincial capital Harbin.

Ninety-one passengers, including five children, and five crew members boarded the plane, sources with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said.

The jet broke into two pieces before it smashed into the ground and exploded at about 9:36 p.m.Tuesday, local officials said.

The blaze had been put out but for some time the flames lightened the area in the middle of the night.

The cause of the crash is being investigated.

The tragedy prompted Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang to lead a team of transportation, health, work safety, and security officials to Yichun overnight.

A staff worker with Embraer's Beijing office said the company did not yet have any comments on the accident.

Lindu Airport is located in a forest some 9 kilometers away from downtown Yichun, a city with about 1 million population.

Henan Airlines launched the Yichun-Harbin service this year and operated flights by ERJ-190 jets three times a week.

The carrier, based in central China province of Henan, was previously known as Kunpeng Airlines and only renamed Henan Airlines last year. It is being controlled by Shenzhen Airlines.

China had kept a remarkable air travel safety record of about 2,100 days -- or 69 months -- without accidents before the passenger plane crash in Yichun City, Heilongjiang Province, on Tuesday, statistics from the CAAC show.

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 and two others on the ground.