A cargo plane crashed in China's north-western Xinjiang region Tuesday, killing its seven crew and narrowly missing houses after running into trouble soon after take off.
The Il-76 plane, a four-engine heavy transport aircraft, dropped from the sky two minutes after taking off from Urumqi airport at 10:50 am (0250 GMT), sparking ear-shattering explosions and a pall of thick black smoke, Xinhua news agency said.
Cargo and debris from the crash were scattered over a two kilometre (1.25 mile) wide area, which was sealed off as crowds of onlookers gathered, said witnesses, who believed the pilot was attempting an emergency landing.
"The plane touched down in a cotton field but kept sliding, with its fuselage resting on one side and its left wing poking into the earth," said Ma Yuelan, a taxi driver who saw the crash. It came down on a farm, hitting cowsheds but missing farmers' homes.
State media said the plane was operated by Azerbaijan Air, although Russia's Interfax news agency quoted the deputy manager of the Azerbaijani airline as saying it belonged to the private Ukrainian company Skywin.
Late Tuesday, fire-fighters were pumping out tonnes of fuel left in two big fuel tanks under the plane's wings, expecting to complete the dangerous task by early Wednesday, Xinhua said.
Zhai Xinchen, political director of the hospital of Production and Construction Units of Military Police in Xinjiang, said the charred bodies of the seven crewmembers had been pulled from the wreckage.
"The bodies of the seven killed were found," he said. The dead included six Ukrainians and one Azerbaijani, Xinhua cited General Administration of Civil Aviation of China officials as saying.
The Russian-made Ilyushin 76 was developed in the late 1960s as a replacement for the turboprop powered Antonov An-12, mainly for military use.
It first flew in March 1971 with full production commencing in 1975, when they entered the fleet of Russian airline Aeroflot. The plane is now in widespread use.
"It crashed when it was taking off after refuelling at the airport. The cause of the crash is unknown so far," a spokesman at the air security office of the Civil Aviation Administration for Xinjiang told AFP. The aircraft was en route from Taiyuan in China's northern Shanxi province via the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Riga in Latvia, Interfax said. It was not clear what cargo was being transported.
Xinhua said rescue workers had located the plane's black-boxes and were leaving them untouched, awaiting the arrival of civil aviation experts.