Sad news from china.
Passenger plane crashes in China
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A small passenger plane with more than 50 people aboard has crashed in northern China, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.
There are believed to be no survivors of the crash near the city of Baotou in the Inner Mongolia region.
The Shanghai-bound flight plunged into a riverside park at the airport shortly after the take-off, Xinhua says.
There were no immediate reports on the cause of the crash of the Canadian-built CRJ-200 jet.
‘Flaming fragments’
The China Eastern plane with 47 or 48 passengers and six crew lost contact with the control tower only about a minute after taking off from the industrial city of Baotou, about 600km (360 miles) west of the capital, Beijing, the Xinhua said.
The plane than plunged into Nanhai Park near the airport at about 0820 local time (0020 GMT), the agency said.
It quoted witnesses as saying that the plane “broke into flaming fragments”, destroying a house next to the part and several yachts. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties on the ground.
The agency’s reporter said firefighters had to battle a huge fire, while rescuers tried to salvage bodies from the wreckage.
The civil aviation authority identified the plane as a CRJ-200, a small commuter jet which normally has capacity to carry 50 passengers.
“The cause of the crash is still under investigation. We’re gathering passenger information at the moment,” an official with China Eastern’s office in Baotou told AFP.