It appeared to briefly regain altitude around 8,000 feet before continuing its plunge, according to Flightradar24’s data.Ī manager for Wuzhou City Beichen Mining, Liao Wenhui, confirmed by telephone that their surveillance camera caught an image that appeared to be a plane plunging directly toward earth, but refused to say more. The plane was cruising at an altitude of 29,100 feet when, in just over a minute, it lost more than 21,000 feet. on Monday for what should have been an hour-and-a-half flight east to Guangzhou, a major commercial city in southeastern China.Īfter an hour, though, the flight turned horribly wrong, according to data from Flightradar24, a tracking platform.Ībout 2:20 p.m., it “suddenly started to lose altitude very fast,” Flightradar24 said in a tweet. John Liu, Liu Yi, Claire Fu, Amy Chang Chien, Li You, and Nadav Gavrielov contributed research and reporting.Ĭhina Eastern Airlines’ Flight MU-5735 left Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, at 1:11 p.m. A team is being set up at that office to assist the families. The southwestern city of Kunming, where the plane took off, is the capital of Yunnan. The plane was not a Boeing 737 Max, a model that has not resumed flying in China after a ban prompted by deadly crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019.Ĭhinese state media said the airline has confirmed that there were no foreign passengers aboard the plane.įamily members of the flight’s crew were gathering at a China Eastern Airlines office in Yunnan Province, according to Chinese state media. The plane, about seven years old, had been flying steadily on this flight until it abruptly lost altitude at around 2:20 p.m., flight data indicated. We are working with our airline customer and are ready to support them.” Agence France-Presse - Getty Imagesīoeing released a statement on Twitter in which the company said: “Our thoughts are with the passengers and crew of China Eastern Airlines Flight MU 5735.
Rescuers at the site of a plane crash in Tengxian county, Guangxi region, where a China Eastern plane with 132 on board went down Monday. “Ensure the absolute safety of civil aviation operations,” Mr. State media reports initially said 133 passengers were on board.Ĭhina’s top leader, Xi Jinping, quickly issued a statement calling for rescuers to do their utmost and “handle the aftermath in a proper manner.” The Chinese central government dispatched officials to the scene to deal with the disaster and investigation into its causes. The plane was carrying 132 people, including 123 passengers and 9 crew members, according to the civil aviation administration. Initial reports said the plane, Flight 5735, crashed in Teng County in Guangxi while flying from Kunming, a city in southwest China, to Guangzhou, a city in the country’s far south. The company offered its condolences to the relatives of those on board in a news statement.
Residents in the area told reporters that the plane appeared to have shattered into debris, dampening hopes of finding survivors. Dozens of local volunteers on motorbikes also carried in water, food and tents. Pictures and video showed a frenzy of activity as the rescuers poured into the area, assembling tents and command posts, setting up power supplies and lights, and lining up dozens of ambulances in the hope of finding anyone alive. Rain was forecast for Tuesday, which could make search efforts more difficult.Ĭhinese vice premier, Liu He - a powerful official who usually steers economic policy - has been assigned to oversee the rescue effort and investigation into the causes of the disaster. Rescuers at the crash site picked through the debris, but the nighttime search efforts were hampered by a lack of electricity and the remote location.
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