2010-08-27 07:03

YICHUN, Heilongjiang - A top aviation official defended the safety of the airport in Northeast China where a plane crashed while approaching the runway - the country's worst commercial air disaster in nearly six years.

Forty-two of the 96 people on board the Henan Airlines flight were killed and the fuselage of the Brazilian-made ERJ-190 jet was burned to bits in a forest valley about 1.5 kilometers from the runway at Yichun city's Lindu Airport Tuesday night.

A major Chinese airline - China Southern - last year adjusted night flights into Yichun, citing concerns about the surrounding terrain, runway lighting and weather conditions. China Southern was the only carrier to fly the Harbin-Yichun route before Henan Airlines.

But Li Jian, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said the airport in Heilongjiang province meets all safety requirements.

"It is no comparison to big airports, but the safety standards are guaranteed," Li said on Wednesday night. The airport was built to handle nighttime flights, he said.

The airport was closed after the crash Tuesday night but reopened on Thursday.

The plane's flight recorders were found on Wednesday and sent to Beijing for decoding the same day, officials from the Civil Aviation Administration of China said on Thursday. But there were no updates on the cause of the crash.

Initial probes and survivors' accounts indicate the plane made a premature landing and crashed on the ground, cracking the cabin and triggering an explosion.

No signs of sabotage have been found, investigators said.

While several ground service staff at Lindu Airport, on condition of anonymity, said that it was foggy with low visibility when the plane crashed Tuesday night, the local weather bureau suggested otherwise.

The meteorological bureau of Yichun city, which regularly forecasts fog and other extreme weather conditions, found no signs of heavy fog that day.

"The city proper was not foggy at all between 9 pm and 10 pm," said Han Guangtian, the bureau chief. "Fog was possible at the airport, though, because it is located in a mountain valley surrounded by lush forests."

The forest area, he said, tends to be colder and more humid than the downtown areas, but still, "heavy fog was unlikely."

The plane crashed around 9:36 pm shortly after its captain told the ground controller he was "ready for normal landing", a top official in Yichun said on Wednesday, quoting airport authorities.

Survivor Xue Xilai said the accident happened shortly after the crew announced they were about to land. "They didn't say it was foggy on the ground. Nor did the crew say there was any danger."

However, the airport was shrouded in thick fog throughout the rescue operation on Tuesday night. Until 5 am Wednesday, visibility was no more than 300 meters.

The captain, 40-year-old Qi Quanjun, did not say anything about the accident except that he "couldn't remember anything", when interviewed at Yichun's No 1 Hospital on Wednesday morning.

Hospital president Qi Xingzhong said the captain suffered only facial injuries that could not have affected his memory or speech.

A source close to the pilot said he used to work for Shenzhen Airlines, the parent company of Henan Airlines, and resigned after he was demoted from captain to copilot. The man declined to be named.

"Frankly speaking, Qi's landing skills were so-so," said the source, who works at Mohe, another regional airport on China's northern border. "He became captain again at Henan Airlines."

Henan Airlines was previously known as Kunpeng Airlines. It flies smaller regional jets, mainly on routes in North and Northeast China.