China Blames Plane Crash Fatal to 108 on Engine Failure

BEIJING — Engine failure caused the crash of a domestic airliner that hit a hillside and plunged into rice paddies in southwest China, killing all 108 people aboard, officials said Friday.

Yan Zhixiang, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, told the New China News Agency that the crew of the Soviet-made Ilyushin 18, on a flight from Beijing, reported the failure of two of the plane’s four engines as the aircraft was on its final approach Monday toward the southwest city of Chongqing,

The captain of the turboprop airliner reported a fire in the No. 4 engine minutes before scheduled landing and requested permission to divert to nearby Chengdu, official news reports said. Two minutes later the captain reported a fire in the No. 1 engine and asked permission to go to Chongqing, the agency said.

In a final communication one minute before the crash, the captain told the airport control tower he had lost control of the aircraft. The China Southwest Airways plane clipped the side of a small hill five miles from the runway, flipped over, broke up and burned, scattering debris for 500 yards.