Fifty-four people died when a small passenger plane of China Eastern
crashed in a park lake immediately after takeoff Sunday morning in Baotou, a
city in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
The accident happened at about 8:20 a.m. when the Mu 5210 flight was headed
for Shanghai.
By 17:10 p.m., the remains of the victims, including 47 passengers, six crew
members and an elderly worker with the Nanhai Park, have all been found. Among
the dead, there was an Indonesian passenger and the rest were all Chinese.
Witnesses said that the plane broke into flaming fragments. A witness named
Wang Yongqiang said when he was in the park, he suddenly saw the nearby plane
shake and black smoke then came out from the tail before it fell to the ground.
He also said he heard a large bang when the plane was in the air.
"If the plane flew at lower level, it would have fallen into the nearby
residential quarter."
An anonymous witness said that the aircraft exploded with a big fire ball
when it rose to about 100 meters above the ground.
Six rescue teams consisting of more than 100 fire fighters were dispatched to
the scene to retrieve the victims' remains from the lake.
According to Luo Yongqiang, head of the city's fire brigade, the weather was
clear in Baotou but the temperature was rather lowand the lake was full of
pieces of ice.
Hospitals in Baotou have made immediate arrangements to receivethe remains of
victims.
Health authorities of the autonomous region have arranged a team of
specialists, who rushed to the site from Hohhot, the region's capital, on Sunday
afternoon, said local health administrators.
CRJ-200, one of the CRJ (Canada Regional Jet) series, is a branch-line
civilian aircraft supplied by the Bombardier Aerospacebased in Canada. It
accommodates 50 seats.
No name list of the victims is currently available now.
More than 30 family members of the victims have rushed to Baotou Airport and
been received by the airport staff. The family members have been settled down at
the Tianshi (Angel) Tower near the airport.
The People's Insurance Company of China, the insurer of the crashed plane,
has sent a special work team to deal with the related claims in the accident.
The rescue group is continuing to search for the flight data recorder and
plane fragments.
