A China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 crashed in a mountainous region of southern China on Monday and there do not appear to be any signs of survivors from the crash.
“Chinese media showed brief highway video footage from a vehicle’s dashcam apparently showing a jet diving to the ground behind trees at an angle of about 35 degrees off vertical,” Reuters reported. “The plane was en route from the southwestern city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong, when it crashed.”
Reports indicated that there were more than 130 people on the plane, including the flight crew, and the company said that the number of casualties remained “unclear.”
“The cause of the plane crash is still under investigation, and the company will actively cooperate with relevant investigations,” China Eastern said in a statement. “The company expresses its deep condolences to the passengers and crew members who died in the plane crash.”
The flight reportedly “had been traveling at around 30,000 feet when the plane entered a deep dive at its cruising altitude speed of 523 mph,” Fox News reported. “The data suggests the plane crashed within a minute and a half of whatever went wrong.”
Flight #MU5735 was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou. It took off from Kunming at 05:11 UTC. It was cruising at 29.100 feet until 06:20:59 when it suddenly started to lose altitude very fast.https://t.co/Lwo8klGf8g pic.twitter.com/QRt7lNIuoM
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 21, 2022
The crash stunned the communist nation as dictator Xi Jinping ordered an immediate investigation into the crash.
“China Eastern Airlines has grounded all its 737-800s,” BBC reported. “More than 600 emergency responders are said to be at the crash site. Firefighters reached the scene first and managed to extinguish a blaze in the hills caused by the crash.”
The BBC noted that the crash appears to be the first major crash involving an airliner in China in approximately 12 years.
The New York Times added:
The plane, about seven years old, had been flying steadily on this flight until it abruptly lost altitude at around 2:20 p.m., flight data indicated. The plane was not a Boeing 737 Max, a model that has not resumed flying in China after a ban prompted by deadly crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019.
Chinese state media said the airline has confirmed that there were no foreign passengers aboard the plane. Family members of the flight’s crew have begun to gather at a China Eastern Airlines office in Yunnan Province, according to Chinese state media. The southwestern city of Kunming, where the plane took off, is the capital of Yunnan. A team is being set up at that office to assist the families.
A person who witnessed the plane crash told state media that “the plane fell vertically from the sky.”
“Although I was very far away, I could still see that it was a plane,” the witness, who was only identified by his surname, Liu, said. “The plane did not smoke during the fall. The fire started after it fell into the mountain, followed by a lot of smoke. My heart was thumping. I immediately informed friends about the situation, that this area is dangerous and not to come nearby.”
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