Chinese airforce crash kills 21

Reports from central China say that two airforce planes crashed onto a village on the same day killing twenty-one people.

The victims included fifteen airmen and six members of one family who were killed last Thursday when a transport plane slammed into their house in Kaifeng county, Henan province.

A second plane, a trainer jet, reportedly also plunged into the ground nearby within ten minutes of the first crash.

An official told Reuters news agency that the planes were very old, and there was a possibility that they had suffered engine problems mid-flight.

A Hong Kong-based human rights group the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said that the government had stopped local media from reporting the incident.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service