A passenger plane carrying 53 people crashed on Sunday in a lake in northern China immediately after takeoff, killing all aboard, the government said.
The plane crashed in Baotou, a city in the Inner Mongolia region, seconds after taking off at about 8.20am local time, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
It was carrying 47 passengers plus six crew members, and was headed to Shanghai, the agency said.
All were confirmed dead by government officials in Baotou, it said.
The plane crashed into a frozen lake in Nanhai Park ”only about a dozen seconds” after it took off, Xinhua said.
Police and firefighters were breaking the ice on the lake to search for victims, it added.
”Witnesses said that the plane broke into flaming fragments,” the report said, adding that a house next to the park was damaged and several yachts were scorched.
There was no immediate word on the cause.
The plane was a Bombardier CRJ-200 aircraft flown by China Eastern Airlines, Xinhua said.
The CRJ-200 can hold 50 passengers, according to aviation websites.
The remains of 36 victims had been recovered by Sunday afternoon, Xinhua said.
The weather was clear in Baotou but cold, the agency said citing Luo Yongqiang, head of the city’s fire brigade.
State television showed pieces of the burned-out plane sitting in the lake, as emergency workers in small rowboats pushed ice out of their way.
A worker in the ticket office at Baotou airport said the crash site is just outside the airport, in a park that surrounds a tributary of the Yellow River.
The area is about 540km north-west of Beijing. — Sapa-AP
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