China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 plane with 132 on board crashes, officials say

The Civil Aviation Administration of China mentioned in a press release the crash occurred close to the town of Wuzhou in Teng county. The flight was touring from Kunming within the western province of Yunnan to the economic middle of Guangzhou alongside the east coast, it added.

There was no speedy phrase on numbers of lifeless and injured. The aircraft was carrying 123 passengers and 9 crew members, the CAAC mentioned, correcting earlier studies that 133 individuals had been on board.

The CAAC mentioned it had despatched a staff of officers, and the Guangxi hearth service mentioned work was underway to regulate a mountainside blaze ignited by the crash.

Satellite tv for pc knowledge from NASA confirmed an enormous hearth simply within the space of the place the aircraft went down on the time of the crash.

Calls to China Japanese workplaces weren’t instantly answered. State media mentioned native police first acquired calls from villagers alerting the crash round 2:30 p.m.

Shanghai-based China Japanese is one in every of China’s prime three airways, working scores of home and worldwide routes serving 248 locations.

The flight that crashed gave the impression to be Flight No. MU5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou, in keeping with knowledge from flight-tracking web site FlightRadar24. It confirmed the Boeing 737-89P quickly misplaced velocity after 0620 GMT earlier than coming into a pointy descent.

The aircraft stopped transmitting knowledge simply southwest of the Chinese language metropolis of Wuzhou.

The plane was delivered to China Japanese from Boeing in June 2015 and had been flying for greater than six years.

The dual-engine, single aisle Boeing 737 is without doubt one of the world’s hottest planes for brief and medium-haul flights.

China Japanese operates a number of variations of the widespread plane, together with the 737-800 and the 737 Max.

The 737 Max model was grounded worldwide after two deadly crashes. China’s aviation regulator cleared that aircraft to return to service late final yr, making the nation the final main market to take action.

China’s final lethal crash of a civilian jetliner was in 2010.