The airport in Yichun, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, reopened Thursday afternoon, 40 hours after the deadliest commercial plane crash in China in nearly six years killed 42 people.

An Airbus 320 took off from Harbin, the provincial capital, at 12:01 PM and will land at Lindu Airport of Yichun in about 40 minutes.

The plane took off from China's capital Beijing at 9:00 AM and stopped over in Harbin before it left for Yichun.

The flight is run by China Southern Airlines, one of the country's leading carriers.

The exact number of passengers on board was not immediately known, though a clerk at the information service at Harbin's Taiping Airport estimated there were "more than 60 people".

"Some are family members of the victims," she told Xinhua in a telephone interview but did not give her name.

While many relatives from Heilongjiang Province rushed to Yichun, a city about 350 km from Harbin, Tuesday night and Wednesday, the China Southern flight was the fastest route for those from other parts of the country to arrive at the remote border port.

At Yichun airport, scores of passengers had gone through customs formalities by 12:20 PM and are ready for boarding after the flight lands at around 12:45 PM.

The return flight is scheduled to take off from Yichun at around 1:00 PM, stop over in Harbin again and head for its final destination Beijing.

China Southern was the only carrier to fly the Harbin-Yichun route before Henan Airlines, a small company named after the central province of Henan, launched the route about two weeks ago.

A Brazil-made ERJ-190 turbine jet of Henan Airlines crashed upon landing at the forests-surrounded Lindu Airport of Yichun City Tuesday night. Fifty-four people survived with injuries including the captain.

Lindu Airport, located in forest-covered mountain valleys about 9 km from downtown Yichun, opened on Aug. 27, 2009.

(Xinhua News Agency August 26, 2010)