China had kept a remarkable air travel safety record of about 2,100 days -- or 69 months -- without accidents before the passenger plane crash in Yichun City, Heilongjiang Province, on Tuesday, statistics from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) show.

On Aug. 24, a short-distance passenger plane carrying 96 people on board crashed during landing at the forests-surrounded airport in Yichun. At least 43 were killed while the rest were hospitalized, officials said early Wednesday.

The Brazil-made ERJ-190 jet is owned by Henan Airlines.

More than five years ago, a CRJ-200 jet crashed shortly after take-off into a park in Baotou City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, killing all 53 people on board and two others on the ground.

The jet was owned by China Eastern Airlines, one of China's top three carriers.

The CAAC had pledged to focus on streamlining the industry's safety systems in 2010 and had set high safety goals. But all of that ended with a late-night deadly crash in Yichun.

Though there is not yet an official account of what caused the crash and the plane's black-box has not yet been found, technical problems propped up among Chinese carriers using the ERJ-190 jets.

Last June, a work-shop was called upon by the CAAC to discuss with domestic carriers, including Kunpeng Airlines (the predecessor of Henan Airlines), problems concerning the imported ERJ-190 jets.

Breaks of the turbine plates and erroneous information displayed in the flight control system were among the most prominent problems, the workshop notes show.

Xu Chaoqun, deputy head of the Flight Criteria Department of the CAAC, said despite defects the ERJ-190 has a great market potential in China.

He called for regular exchange of information and strengthened cooperation between domestic carriers and the Brazilian manufacturer.

China is one of the world's largest aircraft consumer markets. An industry report conducted by Aviation Industry Corporation of China in 2008 shows that China needs to add 3,815 aircrafts, including 2,822 large jets, to its civil aviation fleet before 2027.

Embraer, the Brazilian aerospace conglomerate that makes ERJ-190, also painted a rosy picture of the China market in the next 20 years.

An Embraer report said by 2028 China would complete a 1,000-strong fleet of short-distance turbine jets with seat arrangement ranging from 30 to 120.

Guo Qing, the deputy head of Embraer in charge of the China market, said China's demand for short-distance aircrafts would soar in the coming 20 years.

(Xinhua News Agency August 25, 2010)