All 132 people on board are believed to have died when a passenger plane crashed in southern China.
As the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on Tuesday around 18 hours after the crash, wreckage of the Boeing was found, but no survivors. Several hundred firefighters and rescue workers were deployed. Authorities have not yet announced the official number of victims.
The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737, which is about seven years old, suddenly fell more than 8,800 meters on Monday, according to the aviation authorities. A video showed the plane falling head first. On board were 123 passengers and nine crew members. The accident happened in a remote, hilly area near the city of Wuzhou in southern China’s Guangxi region. The aircraft, flight number MU5735, was en route from Kunming in Yunnan province to Guangzhou in Guangdong province.
According to state media, the remains of ID documents and wallets were discovered at the crash site, which was surrounded by mountains. The flight recorder, which could provide clues about the cause of the accident, was initially not found.
Ground surveillance found around 2:20 p.m. Monday that the plane had suddenly dropped sharply in altitude, Zhu Tao, director of the Aviation Safety Bureau of China’s Civil Aviation Administration, said at a press conference on Tuesday. Several attempts were made to contact the machine, but the crew did not answer. At 2:23 p.m. the signal disappeared.
According to data from the website FlightRadar24.com, the aircraft was able to regain some altitude after a rapid nosedive, but then continued the fall.
“With the information currently available, it is impossible to make a clear judgment about the cause of the accident,” Zhu Tao said. In a next step, an investigation team will collect evidence and focus primarily on the search for the flight recorder.
As the newspaper “Global Times” reported, China Eastern canceled all flights with machines of the affected type 737-800NG. However, other companies had planned more than 850 flights with the model. State media reported that around 70 percent of all flights in China were canceled on Tuesday. However, it was pointed out that due to the pandemic situation, there had recently been a high failure rate.
China’s aviation looks back on a relatively safe decade. The last major plane crash happened in August 2010 in Yichun, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. A Brazilian Henan Airlines Embraer plane crash-landed, killing 44 and 52 surviving.
The US aircraft manufacturer Boeing announced support. “Our thoughts are with the passengers and crew of China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735,” the company said. Technical experts stand by to help investigate the cause of the accident, led by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
China recently lifted a flight ban on Boeing 737 Max aircraft. This was imposed after two machines of this type crashed in Indonesia in 2018 and in Ethiopia in 2019.
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