Special taskforce set up to probe plane crash
0 
China's State Council has set up a special taskforce involving six central government agencies to investigate Tuesday's deadly plane crash in Yichun, a remote mountainous city of the northeastern Heilongjiang Province.
The investigation team consists of officials from State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), Ministry of Supervision, Civil Aviation Administration of China, All-China Federation of Trade Unions, Ministry of Public Security, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and the provincial government of Heilongjiang, said Liang Jiakun, vice director of SAWS.
Liang announced the establishment of the investigation team and a namelist of investigators at an internal meeting in Yichun Saturday.
The team would work to pinpoint the causes of the accident, find out the people responsible for it, and advise the central government on how to revamp the industry to avoid similar disasters, said Liang.
"The plane crash is a lesson for the civil aviation industry, for every pilot and every crew," he said.
The civil aviation industry needs to step up safety checks and strictly control the number of flights, he said. "Safety rules and regulations should be observed closely, and safety checks must be taken seriously."
He promised the team would work efficiently and in accordance with the law. "The results we publish must withstand the test of time and give a clear explanation to the victims, their families and society."
A Brazilian-made ERJ-190 jet carrying 96 people crashed upon landing in Yichun Tuesday night, killing 42 of them. It is deadliest commercial plane crash in China since 2004.
It was the third accident involving the ERJ-190 since 2007, according to sources with Embraer, the Brazilian manufacturer.
An ERJ-190 owned by Aero Republica, a Columbian carrier, overshot the runway in Columbia's Santa Maria on July 17, 2007.
On Sept. 3, a ERJ-190 caught fire upon landing at Lynden Pindling Airport in the Bahamas. The aircraft was owned by the United States carrier Jetblue.
The two accidents caused no casualties.
