Search for Chinese airliner continues

The cause of the crash is still a mystery

Recovery crews are searching for the wreckage of the China Northern Airlines plane which crashed into the sea near Dalian in north-east China on Tuesday night with the loss of all 112 passengers and crew.

Less than 70 bodies have been recovered and boats and divers have been searching the city's coastal waters to locate the jet's fuselage, which is believed to contain the those still missing.

Whole families were wiped out in the crash

A statement from the airline said there were no survivors when the Boeing MD-82 went down minutes after the pilot reported a fire aboard.

Officials in the city have been handing out forms to weeping relatives and friends of the dead, who were mostly local people, asking for personal details to help identify the bodies.

The dead are believed to include a number of entire families consisting of parents and one child, as is common in China.

The "black box" flight recorder has yet to be recovered from the waters, which are 11 metres (37 feet) deep.

Witnesses said the plane - Flight 6136 - crashed into the sea some 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of Dalian airport after making several circles in the air.

It is the second crash involving a Chinese airline in less than a month, and is bound to raise fears over China's air safety.

Eight foreigners - mainly from Japan and South Korea - were among the 103 passengers on the flight, which had originated in Beijing.

But the majority were Dalian residents, likely to be travelling back to work after China's week-long Labour Day holiday.

'Intense fire'

Ground controllers reportedly lost contact with the plane at 2132 local time (1332 GMT) after its captain reported that a fire had broken out in the cabin.

The BBC's Beijing correspondent, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, says there is speculation that there was an intense fire on board moments before the crash.

When they heard the news, fishermen set off in their boats on their own accord

Dalian port official

Xinhua says rescuers found a food trolley that had been burned black and broken in half, indicating the seriousness of the fire.

More than 30 rescue ships raced to the crash site.

"We sent every boat we could find," said a Dalian port authority official.

"When they heard the news, fishermen set off in their boats of their own accord," he said.

A team of investigators sent by the Chinese cabinet has arrived in Dalian to probe the cause of the crash and US investigators including representatives of Boeing are due to assist them.

Previous crashes

The Dalian crash comes only weeks after a crash in South Korea of an Air China plane.

On 15 April, 129 people died when an Air China Boeing 767 crashed into a fog-covered mountain near the southern city of Busan, as the plane was trying to land at Kimhae airport.

South Korean officials have suggested pilot error was to blame in that crash.

China Northern Airlines, established in 1990, is based in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning. It has 24 MD-82s among its fleet.

Tuesday's accident was the second involving a China Northern MD-82. Twelve people died in November 1993 when a jet crashed as it was landing in Urumqi, in China's far western Xinjiang region.