On Monday, the state broadcaster CCTV reported that a passenger plane carrying 132 people crashed in southern China. As of yet, the state media has not received any confirmation regarding the casualties in the incident, which took place in the afternoon. The Chinese Airlines passenger plane Boeing 737 plummeted down in the countryside near Wuzhou city in the Guangxi region. Upon its crash, the plane caused “a mountain of fire,” reported CCTV, and rescue forces were immediately dispatched to the crash site.
Breaking News: A Boeing 737 plane operated by China Eastern Airlines crashed in southern China with more than 130 people on board, state media reported.
There was no immediate information on casualties or why the plane went down. https://t.co/wTJ2KTmBdH
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 21, 2022
The Chinese President Xi Jinping took notice of the incident and ordered an investigation into the matter. Till now, there is no word on the cause of the crash. The air trafffic control which was tracking the flight lost track of the plane at around 2:22 pm (06:22 GMT) when the plane had ascended to 3,225 feet (983 meters). According to the local media, the airport staff which was expecting the flight to land said that the plane had not arrived at its scheduled destination in Guangzhou after it took off from Kunming shortly after midday. The state broadcaster CCTV recorded the President saying that “we are shocked to learn of the China Eastern MU5735 accident,” and ordered all rescue efforts.
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With routes serving 248 destinations, China Eastern is one of the three major airlines operating in China and has a safety record that competes with the best in the world. Moreover, the Boeing 737-800 also has a good safety record and is one of the world’s most popular planes for short and medium-haul flights. The 737-800 NG model that crashed in the Guangxi region has recorded only 11 crashes out of the total 7,000 delivered since 1997. According to Flightradar, the plane involved in the crash was six years old.
BREAKING: China Eastern Boeing 737 crashes with 132 aboard: Chinese aviation officials https://t.co/8IltQTxaZH
— Fox News (@FoxNews) March 21, 2022
The crash comes at an awful time for the plane manufacturers, who were preparing for the reintroduction of its 737 Max in the country, a profitable aviation market. China was the first major aviation market to decommission the 737 Max after the second of two fatal crashes that resulted in the death of 346 people.