THREE Americans died and four other crew members were seriously injured yesterday when a Zimbabwe registered cargo plane crashed in Shanghai, China. Harare based Avient Aviation, which operates the aircraft, confirmed the accident but refused to reveal more details saying it was now a subject of an investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAZZ).

"We can confirm that one of our aircraft crashed at Shanghai Pudong airport around 2:24 AM local time," said a company spokesperson.

"Unfortunately three crew members who are all Americans died and four were injured.

"Some of our directors are on their way to China to be with those affected and we have been holding meetings with CAAZ who as per procedure are now responsible for the investigations.

"CAAZ is also in the process of sending its own people as part of the investigation but obviously there would protocols that would need to be followed."

Among the injured are a Zimbabwean and the rest are Belgian, Indonesian and American nationals.

CAAZ director David Chawota said he was in a meeting and could not comment on the matter.

According, to Associated Press said the plane was headed to Bishekek, the capital of Kyrgystan.

The crash reportedly caused the delay of 30 international flights, leaving more than 4 000 travelers stranded

Shanghai is China's largest city and its economic capital.

Avient has headquarters in Harare but has operations in several European, African and Asian countries.

On its website it says it is "fully trained to move most categories of dangerous goods...and trained to handle difficult and outsized cargo.

Early this month, a Chinese built MA60 Air Zimbabwe plane crashed into warthogs at the Harare International Airport.

The 34 people on board the Bulawayo bound plane were not injured but the plane was damaged.