Yang Liwei, who just returned from a historic 21-hour flight in space, said that his landing on the Inner Mongolia grasslands in north China early Thursday was "one of the most successful landings" he had ever seen.

"I have seen many landing scenes (on videos) before, and I think this one was one of the most successful," said Yang, 38, on his way back to the capital Beijing by a special plane.

Yang, who was sent into space at 9 am Wednesday by China's home-made Shenzhou V spacecraft, orbited the earth 14 times before landing safely at around 6 am Thursday.

Yang was the first ever Chinese astronaut to visit outer space, while his space journey also made China the third nation to send a man into orbit following the former Soviet Union and the United States

(Xinhua News Agency October 16, 2003)