All 112 passengers and crew on board a China Northern Airlines
plane that crashed into the sea off China's northeast coast have
died, the airline announced Wednesday.
"None of the 103 passengers and nine crew has survived," said a
written statement handed to relatives of those on board the MD-82
airliner which crashed near the city of Dalian on Tuesday
night.
The China Northern Airlines plane on a domestic flight from Beijing
crashed late Tuesday just short of its destination in Dalian, a
major port city.
More than 60 bodies had been pulled from Dalian Bay by Wednesday
morning, officials said. Debris in the water included a charred
foodservice pushcart broken in half.
"We haven't found any survivors," said a police officer reached by
telephone at the Dalian airport. He wouldn't give his name.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-82 went down at 9:40 pm (1340 GMT) about
20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Dalian airport after the pilot
reported a fire.
There were 103 passengers and nine crew members aboard Flight 6136,
China Northern said. It said they included one from Hong Kong and
seven foreigners -- three Japanese and one each from Singapore,
India, France, and South Korea.
It
was the second fatal crash in a month of a Chinese airliner and
came despite extensive efforts to improve China's air safety.
More than 40 vessels joined the search, the Sea Rescue Center in
Dalian said. Fishermen searched through the night using
searchlights, joined later by two Chinese naval vessels.
"We sent every boat we could find," said a Dalian port authority
official who gave only his surname, Liu. "When they heard the news,
fishermen set off in their boats."
State television showed searchers pulling wreckage from the bay,
which is six to 12 meters (20 to 40 feet) deep. It included what
appeared to be a piece of the plane's tail and bits of broken
seats.
Authorities were still looking for the plane's "black box" flight
data and voice recorders, said a man who answered the phone at the
Sea Rescue Center and wouldn't give his name.
A
policeman at an oil pier run by the Dalian Petrochemical Plant said
he saw the plane flying in low circles just before the crash.
"I
saw flame and light in the cabin," said the policeman, who spoke on
condition of anonymity. He said the force of the impact was like an
"earthquake on the sea" and caused waves that shook patrol boats
tied up at the oil pier.
The crash came at the end of China's weeklong Labor Day holiday, a
time when millions of Chinese travel within the country, suggesting
that many aboard were returning home for the resumption of business
Wednesday morning.
Most of those aboard were residents of Dalian, which is 450
kilometers (280 miles) east of Beijing.
At
the Dalian airport, China Northern set aside a lounge for relatives
of victims. The airline also set up a reception center in a Dalian
hotel, with tables in the lobby for families to register.
China Northern issued a statement expressing its "deepest
condolences" to families of the victims and promising to help with
an investigation and "fulfill our responsibilities to the
deceased."
The central government sent a team of investigators to Dalian from
Beijing.
China Northern's only other known fatal accident also involved an
MD-82. That plane crashed in 1993 while landing in heavy fog in the
northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi. Twelve people were reported
killed.
On
April 15, an Air China flight from Beijing slammed into a mountain
in heavy rain and fog while preparing to land near Pusan, South
Korea.
(China
Daily May 8, 2002)