A China Eastern Airlines company plane with 132 passengers crashed on Monday in southwestern China, after a brutal fall of 8,000 meters, a plane crash that could be the deadliest in this country since 1994.
On Monday night, more than six hours after the disaster, there was still no death toll, but based on the circumstances of the accident, it seemed unlikely that anyone had escaped alive.
In a statement China Eastern Airlines “paid tribute” to those “dead” in the disaster.
The FlightRadar24 flight tracker offered no more data for MU5735 after 2:22 p.m. local time, when it flew over Wuzhou. The website shows how the plane had fallen sharply from an altitude of 8,900 meters to 1,000 in three minutes, the latest data available.
The Boeing 737 was traveling from the city of Kunming to the metropolis of Guangzhou, but “lost contact when it was flying over the city of Wuzhou”, in the mountainous region of Guangxi, according to a statement from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). ).
“At this time, it is confirmed that the flight has crashed,” the CAAC said, adding that it had activated its emergency response and sent a rescue team to the scene.
The device was carrying 123 passengers and 9 crew members, a total of 132 people, although Chinese media had previously mentioned 133 people on board.
Chinese President Xi Jinping — in a very unusual reaction — said he was “shocked” and called for an investigation so that “the causes of the accident can be determined as soon as possible.”
– ‘Shocked’ –
The Boeing 737 would have crashed in a rural area near that city, “starting a fire,” said Chinese television CCTV, which published images of firefighters heading to the crash site through a mountainous area lined with trees. Rescue teams managed to extinguish the flames.
“All the residents took the initiative to help in the rescue. They all went to the mountain,” a shopkeeper, Tang Min, who lives about four kilometers from the crash site, told AFP by phone.
Another resident of the area told a local media that the plane involved in the accident had been “pulverized” and that he had seen nearby forest areas destroyed by the fire caused by the plane crashing into the mountainside.
From the United States, Boeing, manufacturer of the device, said it was trying to “gather more information”.
According to financial outlet Yicai, China Eastern decided to suspend all of its 737-800s as of Tuesday, without waiting for the results of the investigation. AFP tried in vain to contact the company to comment on this information.
In recent years, China has stood out for enviable aviation safety standards, in a country teeming with newly built airports and covered by new airlines established to cater to the country’s breakneck growth in recent decades.
The last major plane crash in China was in August 2010, with an unconfirmed balance of 42 victims.
It was the latest accident involving a Chinese commercial passenger flight to cause civilian casualties.
The deadliest Chinese commercial flight accident was a China Northwest Airlines crash in 1994 in which all 160 people on board died.
Most of the passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared in March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, were from China.
