Airliner Crashes in Southeastern China; 61 Killed

A Chinese airliner plunged into a field Wednesday and exploded several miles short of its destination in southeastern China, killing all 61 people aboard and gouging a huge hole in the ground, state media reported.

The crash of the China Southwest Airlines jet shook homes in nearby Tangtou, said villager Zhen Huanlong.

“The ground is covered in blood,” Zhen said by telephone. “The house even rattled. It really was very frightening.”

No foreigners were on the flight from the southwestern city of Chengdu to Wenzhou, 800 miles southeast of Beijing, the New China News Agency reported.

The Russian-made Tupolev-154, with 50 passengers and 11 crew members, was 12 miles from Wenzhou when it crashed and exploded at 4:20 p.m. near the city of Ruian, the report said.

The weather was clear, a local reporter said, and the cause of the crash was not immediately known.

The plane gouged a hole more than 200 feet long by 100 feet wide in the rural area near Ruian, 18 miles south of Wenzhou, state TV news reported.

Several farmers were injured and taken to hospitals, the report said. Police and firefighters also treated the injured on the ground, the news agency said.

“There was a whirring sound and then an explosion. The sound was extremely loud,” a farmer who refused to be identified said in a telephone interview.

A Communist Party official at Wenzhou’s airport said the plane radioed in when it descended to 3,300 feet, but contact was lost when it dropped to 2,300 feet.