Henan Airlines plane crashed in Lindu - China

Chinese jet misses runway and bursts into flames.

Chinese jet misses runway and bursts into flames; state media say 42 killed and 54 rescued.

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, killing 42 people and injuring 54 others.

The Henan Airlines plane with 91 passengers and five crew crashed late Tuesday in a grassy area near the Lindu airport on the outskirts of Yichun. Five of those onboard were children, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said, and at least one, an 8-year-old boy, survived.

It was China's first major commercial air disaster in nearly six years. The plane's black box was recovered, Xinhua reported, but it is still not known what caused the accident.

The newly built Yichun airport sits in a forested valley and has operated for a year, and 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."

The crash and 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.

The official Xinhua News Agency said officials had earlier reported 43 dead because one body was torn apart in the crash and had been counted as two. It said the pilot, Qi Quanjun, survived the crash but was badly hurt and cannot speak.

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.