Safety concerns raised about China crash runway

One of the dead was a Chinese with a foreign passport, according to Xinhua, but it did not give the nationality. It also said a passenger from Taiwan was hurt.

Five of those on board were children, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said, and at least one, an 8-year-old boy, survived. Ji Yifan told Xinhua he was saved by another passenger.

"Someone dragged me to the emergency exit door and threw me out before I realized what was going on," the boy was quoted as saying.

Ji told Xinhua that the evacuation slide, which was on fire, broke as he was sliding down. "I fell to the ground. Again someone dragged me aside," he said. He was speaking from his hospital bed, where he had bruises on his face, neck and arms.

The Brazilian-made Embraer E-190 jet had taken off from Heilongjiang's capital of Harbin shortly before 9 p.m. (1300 GMT) and crashed a little more than an hour later while arriving at Yichun, a city of about 1 million people 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Russian border.

Eighteen officials from China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and various provincial branches were on the flight, headed to a meeting in Yichun, Xinhua said. It said Vice Minister Sun Baoshu was in critical condition with broken bones and head injuries.

The Yichun city Communist Party published an online list of victims with 42 names. They ranged in age from 12, a girl, to 55.

A statement in Chinese on Embraer's website said the company had sent officials to the crash scene to cooperate with the investigation.

"Embraer extends its profound condolences and wishes for recovery to the families and friends of those lost or injured in the accident," it said.

Henan Airlines is based in the central Chinese province of the same name and flies smaller regional jets, mainly on routes in north and northeast China. Previously known as Kunpeng Airlines, the carrier was relaunched as Henan Airlines earlier this year. It launched the Yichun-Harbin service this year.

Henan Airlines, which on Wednesday suspended all its flights, and many other regional Chinese airlines flying shorter routes have struggled in the past few years, losing passengers to high-speed railroad lines that China has aggressively expanded.

Full-tilt expansion of Chinese air traffic in the 1990s led to a series of crashes that gave China the reputation of being unsafe. The poor record prompted the government to improve safety drastically, from airlines to new air traffic management systems at airports.

The last major passenger jet crash in China was in November 2004, when a China Eastern airplane plunged into a lake in northern China, killing all 53 on board and two on the ground.

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