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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, January 09, 2003

US Small Plane Crash Kills All 21 Aboard

Nineteen passengers and two crew members on a US commuter plane were killed Wednesday as the twin-engine turboprop plane crashed on take off at an international airport in North Carolina.


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Nineteen passengers and two crew members on a US commuter plane were killed Wednesday as the twin-engine turboprop plane crashed on take off at an international airport in North Carolina.

The US Airways Express/Air Midwest Flight 5481 plane went upside down and struck one side of a hangar at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport as it took off about 8:45 a.m. (1345GMT), authorities said.

Jonathan Ornstein, a spokesman for Mesa Airlines, which owns Air Midwest, told local television that everyone on board the plane was killed. "Our understanding is that the accident occurredat takeoff and that all aboard the aircraft perished," he said.

Plumes of gray smoke could be seen rising from the hangar on television.

The plane was departing for Greenville-Spartanburg in South Carolina. The weather conditions were clear, cold and windy at time of the crash, with visibility of more than 10 miles (about 16kilometers), airport authorities said.

The Beech 1900 twin-engine turboprop plane was about 8 years old and had 15,000 hours of flight time and 21,000 takes offs and landings, Ornstein said.

The plane's owner, Air Midwest, currently operates a fleet of 36 such aircraft, with 29 of them in service with the US Airways Express division.

An investigation team from the National Transportation Safety Board would arrive at the crash scene in the afternoon, local television reports said.

The crash came after a year in which there were no commercial airline fatalities in the United States.


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