No signs of life after Boeing crashes with 132 on board in southern China

Beijing — A China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board crashed in mountains in southern China on a domestic flight on Monday and media reported that rescue workers have found no sign of survivors.

The plane was flying from the southwestern city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong. There was no immediate word on the cause of the crash.

“Can confirm the plane has crashed,” China Eastern Airlines said in a statement in which it also gave details of a hotline for relatives of those on board.

Media cited a rescue official as saying the aircraft had disintegrated and caused a fire destroying bamboo trees. The People’s Daily quoted a provincial firefighting department official as saying there was no sign of life among the scattered debris.

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 1.11pm (5.11am GMT), FlightRadar24 data showed, and had been due to land in Guangzhou at 3.05pm (7.05am GMT). The plane, which Flightradar24 said was six years old, had been cruising at an altitude of 8,870m at 6.20am GMT. Just more than two minutes and 15 seconds later, data showed it had descended to 2,766m.

In another 20 seconds, its last tracked altitude was 983m, indicating a vertical descent of 9,500m per minute, Flightradar24 said. 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 and to ensure “absolute” aviation safety, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Shares of Boeing were down 6.4% at $180.44 in premarket trade. Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Shares in China Eastern Airlines in Hong Kong closed down 6.5% after news of the crash broke, while its US-listed shares slumped 17% in premarket trading.

‘Good record’

Aviation data provider OAG said earlier in March that state-owned China Eastern Airlines was the world’s sixth-largest by scheduled weekly seat capacity and the biggest in China.

China has had a relatively strong domestic aviation market during the coronavirus pandemic despite tight curbs on international flights. The safety record of China’s airline industry has been among the best in the world over the past decade.

“China Eastern and China generally have had a good air safety record over the past decade or so,” said Shukor Yusof, head of Malaysia-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics.

“The CAAC has very rigid safety regulations and we will just need to wait for more details to help shed light on the plausible cause of the accident.”

The 737-800 model that crashed on Monday has a good safety record and is the predecessor to the 737 MAX model that has been grounded in China for more than three years after fatal crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia. ​Investigators will be looking to recover the two so-called black boxes — the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder — to help shed light on the crash.

According to Aviation Safety Network, China’s last fatal jet accident was in 2010, when 44 of 96 people on board were killed after an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed on approach to Yichun airport in low visibility.

In 1994, a China Northwest Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 flying from Xian to Guangzhou crashed, killing all 160 people on board and ranking as China’s worst-ever air disaster, according to Aviation Safety Network.

Update: March 21 2022
This story has been updated with additional information.

Reuters