BEIJING — Forty-three people were killed and 53 others were injured Tuesday night when a Chinese jet crashed and burst into flames while trying to land on a fog-shrouded runaway in northeastern China, state media reported.
A local official told the Xinhua news agency that the Henan Airlines plane split into two pieces, throwing some passengers out of the cabin, before it crashed outside Yichun, a city of about one million people in Heilongjiang Province.
But accounts from two survivors suggested that the plane might have remained intact until it hit a grassy area perhaps a half mile from the Lindu airport. They said the Brazilian-made Embraer E-190 aircraft jolted so violently that luggage flew off the overhead racks, but they did not describe passengers’ being ejected into the air.
It was the first major passenger airline disaster in China since November 2004, when a China Eastern plane crashed into a lake in northern China, killing 55 people.
Xinhua reported that Chinese carriers had previously complained of problems with E-190 aircraft, including cracks in the turbine plates and flight control system errors. China’s Civil Aviation Administration had organized a workshop in June to discuss the concerns, the news agency said.
One middle-aged survivor, interviewed in a hospital bed by the state-controlled CCTV television network, said smoke billowed from the rear of the plane after it hit the ground. Panicked passengers feared they would suffocate.
"It was very strong,” he said. “It looked like we had only two or three minutes left. I knew something bad was going to happen.”
He said he and other passengers tried without success to open the emergency exit door, then escaped through a crack in the plane’s body near the first row of seats.
Another passenger who had been seated in the 10th row told CCTV that the rear of the plane had hit the ground first. “I rushed to the front, tried to smash the window with my fist, but failed,” he said. “I walked to the back, but couldn’t get out either. Then somebody said there was a crack in the plane, so we managed to get out from there.”
Henan Airlines primarily operates regional flights. The jet took off from the provincial capital, Harbin, shortly before 9 p.m. on Tuesday, with 91 passengers and five crew members aboard.
It crashed roughly an hour later. Television reports showed emergency workers dousing the burning wreckage with fire hoses.
Local officials said that most of the survivors suffered broken bones. Three were in critical condition.
