Five people died on Wednesday when a seaplane they were travelling in crashed into a bridge in Shanghai on its maiden flight to an offshore island, the government said.
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The plane, owned by charter airline Joy General Aviation, was taking off on a demonstration flight with 10 people on board including the crew, when it hit the bridge in Jinshan district, Shanghai media platform “The Paper” reported.
The route is designed for tourists and sightseers who want to escape to the islands from sprawling Shanghai.
According to Shanghai Daily, the Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission said five of the passengers were pronounced dead in the Jinshan district hospital.
Reports said that the nine-seater Cessna 208B flight was carrying eight passengers, the co-pilot and the pilot, Zhou Hua, who has had 46 years of flying experience. One person with serious injuries is undergoing surgery, and four others sustained injuries, which were not life threatening, state-run Xinhua quoted a doctor at Jinshan Hospital in Fudan University. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.
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The flight on the 30 million yuan ($4.5 million) aircraft would have taken half an hour to reach Zhoushan. The company reportedly released a statement saying, “Textron Aviation is aware there was an incident today at Jinshan, Shanghai, involving a Joy Air-operated Cessna aircraft”.
