China's Hu orders probe into military crash

BEIJING, June 5 (Reuters) Chinese President Hu Jintao has ordered an investigation into the crash of a military transport plane in which all 40 people on board were killed, Chinese state media reported today.

The plane crashed in east China's Anhui province on Saturday, the Chinese air force said, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Hu has demanded China's defence forces ''seriously and conscientiously draw lessons from the accident'', Xinhua reported. Hu is also Chairman of the Central Military Commission, the country's top military body.

A team headed by General Guo Boxiong, Vice-Chairman of the Commission, flew to the crash scene to oversee the investigation.

Chinese media did not offer any details of the crash or the plane's prior activities, apart from saying it was on a ''mission.'' Villagers who rushed to the scene said they had found no one alive after the plane crashed and broke up in bamboo-covered hills in Guangde county, some 200 km west of Shanghai. Troops sealed off the crash site, villagers said.

Disclosure of military accidents in China is rare.

Beijing dismissed a naval commander and demoted other officers after a 2003 submarine accident killed 70 men in one of the country's worst naval disasters since the 1949 Communist takeover.

Reuters PDS VP0558