Boeing 737-800 crashes into mountains in southern China with 132 passengers and crew on board

China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735, a Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board crashed in mountains in southern China on a flight on Monday after a sudden descent from cruising altitude. No sign of survivors. The airline said it deeply mourned the passengers and crew, without specifying how many people had been killed. Chinese media showed brief highway video footage from a vehicle's dashcam apparently showing a jet diving to the ground.

The plane was in route from Kunming to Guangzhou, which borders Hong Kong, when it crashed. China Eastern said the cause of the crash, in which the plane descended at 31,000 feet a minute according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, was under investigation.

Media cited a rescue official as saying the plane had disintegrated and caused a forest fire.

The aircraft, with 123 passengers and nine crew on board, lost contact over the city of Wuzhou, China's Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the airline said.

The flight left Kunming at 1:11 p.m, and had been due to land in Guangzhou at 3:05 p.m.

The plane was six years old, had been cruising at 29,100 feet. Just over two minutes and 15 seconds later, data showed it had descended to 9,075 feet. Twenty seconds later, its last tracked altitude was 3,225 feet. Online weather data showed partly cloudy conditions with good visibility in Wuzhou at the time of the crash. President Xi Jinping called for investigators to determine the cause of the crash as soon as possible, state broadcaster CCTV reported. A Boeing spokesperson said: "We are aware of the initial media reports and are working to gather more information." The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said it was ready to assist with China's investigation if asked.

China's aviation safety record, while good, is less transparent than in countries like the United States and Australia where regulators release detailed reports on non-fatal incidents, said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor at industry publication Flightglobal.

"There have been concerns that there is some underreporting of safety lapses on the mainland," he said.

According to Aviation Safety Network, China's last fatal jet accident was in 2010, when 44 of 96 people on board were killed when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed on approach to Yichun airport. Article written by FSH Journalists Sources: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-eastern-airlines-passenger-jet-has-accident-guangxi-state-media-says-2022-03-21/ https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/china-eastern-airlines-flight-5735-crashes-en-route-to-guangzhou/