A passenger plane crashed Sunday in a lake in northern China immediately after takeoff, killing all 53 people aboard and two others on the ground, the government said. The China Eastern Airlines plane went down in Baotou, a city in the Inner Mongolia region, after taking off at about 8:20 a.m. (0020 GMT), the official Xinhua News Agency said. The plane, a Bombardier CRJ-200, was headed for Shanghai with 47 passengers and six crew members when it crashed into a frozen lake in Nanhai Park "only about a dozen seconds" after it took off, Xinhua said. All aboard were confirmed dead by government officials in Baotou, the agency said. Two workers in Nanhai Park were also killed, it said. They were near the park's ticket office. Police and firefighters were breaking the ice on the lake to search for victims, and divers had been called in to help, Xinhua said.
