Chinese Jet Crash Kills All 160 Aboard

A Chinese passenger jet crashed and broke into pieces Monday less than 10 minutes after takeoff from the popular tourist city of Xian, killing all 160 people aboard.

Among the dead were two Americans, six Italians and one Swiss, according to the Foreign Ministry and the official New China News Agency.

It was the worst reported aviation disaster ever in China, where officials blame an alarming increase in the number and seriousness of accidents on the rapid growth in air traffic.

The news agency confirmed there were no survivors aboard the plane, which crashed in a field south of Xian. There was no word on the cause of the crash.

The Soviet-made Tupolev-154, operated by China Northwest Airlines, crashed at 8:20 a.m. in a rural area of Changan County, directly south of Xian and about 600 miles southwest of Beijing.

The flight, which was en route to the southern city of Guangzhou, was carrying 146 passengers and 14 crew, the news agency said.

A woman who answered the phone at the Xian headquarters of China Northwest Airlines said that it had been raining at the time of the crash. China Northwest has no relationship to the U.S. carrier Northwest Airlines.