A China Northern Airlines plane plunged into the sea off the
northeast coastal city of
Dalian Tuesday night after
its crew reported a fire in the cabin, and all 112 aboard were
feared dead.
Chinese warships and tugs combed the dark waters overnight,
recovering 60 bodies, but hopes of finding survivors were dim,
rescue workers and state media said on Wednesday.
The twin-engined McDonnell-Douglas MD-82 crashed about six miles
off the coast at around 9:40 pm as it was coming in to land
Tuesday, minutes after the captain reported the fire, Xinhua
News Agency said.
The aircraft made several circles before suddenly plunging into the
sea with its lights out, Xinhua quoted Dalian port worker
Liu Jiqing as saying.
Another worker at Dalian port said he was surprised by the noise of
the impact. "Ambulances and police poured in and I knew it was a
crash," he said.
"The rescue workers found a pushcart used for serving food that has
been burned black and (broken) in half, which indicates the
seriousness of the fire," Xinhua said.
Xinhua said there was little hope of finding anyone who
survived the crash -- China's second in a month.
On
April 15, an Air China Boeing 767 crashed into a South Korean
mountain in thick fog on route from Beijing to Pusan, killing 122
in the airline's first crash.
Thirty-eight people survived and six are unaccounted for.
Navy Joins Search
The China Northern crash brought a grim end to the week-long Labor
Day holidays, during which millions of domestic travelers toured
the country and airlines laid on extra flights.
A
rescue official said from Dalian a flotilla of more than 30 tugs
was combing the sea for possible survivors and picking up pieces of
wreckage.
"It looks unlikely that we will have any survivors," a rescue
official at Dalian port said.
The aircraft was carrying 103 passengers and nine crew. Eight
foreigners -- including two from Japan and two from South Korea --
were on board.
President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji ordered aviation,
police and transport agencies and the military to "fully organize
and support rescue efforts."
At
Beijing's Capital Airport, China Northern Airline workers were seen
reviewing tickets and passenger lists to identify those on board
the plane, but they declined to comment.
Most of the passengers were from the Yellow Sea city of Dalian.
Family members gathered in city hotels to await word on the fate of
their relatives.
Police had begun DNA testing to identify victims of the disaster
and a State Council, or cabinet, investigation team landed in
Dalian early Wednesday.
Ground controllers lost contact with the plane at 9:32 pm after its
captain reported the fire in the cabin and the aircraft crashed
eight minutes later, it said.
The flight left Beijing at 8:37 pm and was due to land at Dalian's
Zhoushuizi Airport about an hour later.
Chris Yates, air safety expert with aviation and defense publishers
Jane's, said there were many potential causes for fire in aircraft,
including smoking and faulty electrical wiring.
"I
imagine that investigators will consider a particular type of
electrical cabling that might have overheated and caused the fire
in the Chinese plane," he said.
Second Crash
It
was the second deadly crash for the Shenyang-based airline, which
according to China Northern's Website had 24 MD-82s in its fleet of
more than 80 aircraft.
In
November 1993, an MD-82 operated by China Northern crashed while
landing in the northwestern city of Urumuqi, killing 12 and
injuring seven.
The plane that crashed Tuesday was delivered in July 1991 and had
logged 26,000 flight hours on 16,000 flights, according to
Boeing.
It
was one of 35 MD-80 series jets assembled from McDonnell Douglas
parts kits at a Shanghai factory. Thirty of those went to Chinese
carriers and five were shipped back to US carrier TWA.
China's worst crash occurred in June 1994 when a Russian-built
Tupolev-154 operated by China Northwest Airlines en route from the
tourist city of Xi'an to Guangzhou crashed less than 10 minutes
after take-off, killing all 160 people on board.
(China
Daily May 8, 2002)