Chinese Henan Airlines E-190 crashes *updates*
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Henan Airlines Flight 8387 was a flight from Harbin, Heilongjiang, China to Yichun, Heilongjiang, China. On August 24, 2010, it overshot a runway and burst into flames at Yichun Lindu Airport. According to reports, around 96 people were onboard, of which Yichun's emergency services confirmed, that 42 bodies were recovered, 54 people were rescued alive.
A middle-age man who survived the crash told China Central Television there was bad turbulence as the plane descended, then several big jolts that caused the luggage to come crashing from the overhead bins.
"After we stopped, the people in the back were panicking and rushed to the front," the unidentified man, who had no visible injuries, said in an interview from a hospital bed.
"We were trying to open the [emergency exits], but they wouldn't open. Then the smoke came in ... within two or three minutes or even a minute, we couldn't breathe. I knew something bad was going to happen."
The man said he and a few others escaped from a hole in the wall of the cabin near the first row of seats, then ran from the burning wreckage.
Investigators recovered two black boxes from the wreckage Wednesday and were waiting to question the pilot, Qi Quanjun, who survived but was badly injured.
Shortly before the crash, Qi told air traffic controllers he saw the runway lights and was preparing to land, Xinhua quoted an Yichun city official as saying.
But fog shrouded the airport tucked into a valley, with visibility less than 2,000 feet (600 metres). Survivors described seeing nothing but blackness outside the windows as the plane slammed into grass and fell apart about 1 mile (1.5 kilometres) from the runway at Yichun city's Lindu Airport.
The crash and subsequent fire were so severe that little of the fuselage remained, though the charred tail was still largely intact. China Central Television said eight of the victims were found 65 to 100 feet (20 to 30 meters) from the plane's wreckage in a muddy field.
China's Civil Aviation Authority said, the Embraer ERJ-190 registration B-3130 with 96 passengers (thereof 5 children) and 5 crew came to a rest approx. 1500 meters from the runway while landing at 21:36L.,
The E-190 was manufactured by Embraer, the Brazilian aerospace company. The Embraer E-Jets are narrow, twin engine jets first introduced into travel in 1999. The E-190/195 family a long-body version of the jet typically used by JetBlue. It was introduced into sevice in 2004. JetBlue ordered 100 of the jet that year. Flybe in Europe made a 14 jet purchase of the E-190 in 2004 while Air Canada has 45 of them in their fleet. Typically the plane can carry 9 business-class seats and 84 economy-class seats.
It says the aircraft is registered B-3130. Flightglobal's ACAS database last listed the jet as a two-year old airframe, leased from RBS Aviation Capital.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China confirms that the aircraft had been operating as flight VD8387 between Harbin and Yichun, adding that the jet departed Harbin at 20:51.
Yichun is in Heilongjiang province, in the northeast of China. Henan Airlines has a fleet of five Embraer 190s.
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.
Henan Airlines 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.
Fast 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 an China Eastern airplane plunged into a lake in northern China shortly, killing all 53 on board and two on the ground.
Aviation Sources in China say, that at the time fog prevailed with a visibility of 300 meters. The airplane touched down 1000 meters from the runway.
Yichun's Lindu Airport [ZYLD] in the Heilongjiang province of China about 165nm northeast of Harbin Airport was opened to operation only on Aug 27th 2009 (construction began in 2008), the current route operated is Beijing-Harbin-Yichun. The airport, located 9km (4.8nm) from the city center in the Yichun Forest , is capable to accept Airbus A320, Boeing 737 and similiar aircraft with a runway length of 2400 meters (7870 feet) and width of 45 meters (150 feet). The runway 12/30 features PAPIs for both ends, VOR/DME and NDB approaches are available for both ends.
The local weather station reported fair weather (few cloud), 20km visibility, calm winds (<4 knots), temperature at 27 degrees C and dew point at 24 degrees C with 81% humidity two hours prior to the accident. 5 hours prior to the accident the station reported light rainshowers at 30km visibility, temperature at 30 degrees C with the dew point at 26 degrees C (71% humidity).
Henan Airlines, a small regional carrier, previously reported alleged problems with their Embraer 190 jets, including finding turbine cracks and erroneous information showing up in their flight control systems.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China reported in its official magazine last June that the airline, then called Kunpeng Airlines, discussed the problems with technicians from Brazil's Embraer, U.S. engine-maker General Electric Corp. and officials from CAAC at a meeting. The report said CAAC officials urged the parties to find and fix the problems, but it was not clear if the issues were resolved.
Tracy Chen, a spokeswoman for Embraer in Beijing, said she could not confirm the report but noted the company was co-operating with authorities in the investigation.
A crew of technicians at Embraer, the world's largest maker of regional jets, flew on Tuesday to China to investigate a crash of one of its ERJ-190 planes, which has been called the Asian nation's worst accident in recent years.
"The company has made available the crew, which is now en route to the crash site, to help the Chinese authorities with the investigation," Embraer said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday.
The crash is the first involving an Embraer plane of the ERJ-170/190 family, whose four models have more than 650 planes currently operating with more than 4 million hours of service. The ERJ-190, the more popular of the family, has about 290 planes under service.
Aviation officials at a relatively new airport in northeast China searched through debris Wednesday for clues to why a passenger jet crashed and burned while trying to land on a fog-shrouded runway.
The newly built Yichun airport sits in a forested valley and has operated for a year. Concerns about the safety of night landings there had been raised by at least one major airline.
China Southern Airlines decided last August to avoid night flights in and out of Yichun, switching its daily flight from Harbin to the daytime. A technical notice cited concerns about the airport's surrounding terrain, runway lighting and wind and weather conditions.
"Principally there should be no night flights at Yichun airport," said the notice from China Southern's Heilongjiang province branch that was posted online. An employee with the branch's technical office confirmed the notice's authenticity. He declined to give his name because he was not authorized to talk to the media, but said China Southern decided to cancel night flights at Yichun "for safety concerns. We're cautious."
Critics are coming forward, accusing the Chinese aviation industry of lax standards and overgrowing without checek.
"Henan Airlines should not have been operating that flight," said Zhang Qihuai, a lawyer from the Lan Peng Law Firm in Beijing who represents victims of aviation accidents. He blamed in part the Civil Aviation Administration of China for permitting the flight.
"China's aviation industry has been growing rapidly, but blindly, for a long time," he said. "When it grows that fast, there will always be loopholes" in the safety regulations.
A frequent cause of aviation disasters during the approach and landing phase is known as "controlled flight into terrain," in which an otherwise airworthy plane is accidentally flown into the ground or water. This usually occurs because of the pilots' spatial disorientation due to low visibility or other factors.
Henen Airlines suspended all flights in response to crash of an Embraer 190 that killed 42 and injured 54 at Yichun airport. . CAAC Minister Li Jiayang said Henen's remaining four E-190s would remain grounded pending safety inspections. This was China's first fatal airline accident in more than six years.
Xinhua announced that Henan GM Li Qiang has been relieved of his duties and replaced by Cao Bo on an acting basis. Xinhua said Vice Prime Minister Zhang Dejiang arrived Wednesday at the crash site to help set up an investigation team, which will examine the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, both of which have been recovered, in an effort to determine the cause of the crash. Embraer technicians flew to the site Tuesday to assist in the investigation.
China aviation official says no safety issues at airport where plane crashed, killing 42
Li Jian, vice director of the Civil Aviation Authority of China, defended the safety of an airport in remote northeast China where a plane crashed while coming in for a night landing .
"It is no comparison to big airports, but the safety standards are guaranteed," Li was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency. The airport was built to handle nighttime flights, he said.
The 40-year-old captain, Qi Quanjun, who survived the crash but was injured, told Xinhua he couldn't remember anything.
Shortly before the crash, Qi told air traffic controllers he saw the runway lights and was preparing to land, Xinhua quoted an Yichun city official as saying.
Survivor Xue Xilai was also quoted as saying that the crew announced the plane would be landing soon but did not say conditions were foggy or that there was any danger.
Henan's board of directors fired the airline's general manager, Li Qiang, and appointed an acting manager to replace him, Xinhua said. Cao Bo, Li's replacement, served as the chief pilot of Shenzhen Airlines, the parent company of Henan Airlines.