A China Eastern Airlines-operated Boeing 737-800 plane bearing Flight Number 5735 has crashed. The wreckage of the plane has been found.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China confirmed that there were 132 people on board – including 123 passengers and 9 crew members – who are all feared dead.
China Eastern Airlines’ Flight 5735 was traveling from Kunming in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan to the port city of Guangzhou, northwest of Hong Kong, according to a Bloomberg report.
Radar tracking shows that the plane descended steeply on an almost vertical trajectory prior to the crash. The China Eastern Airlines Corp jet was flying a normal route to Guangzhou, when it suddenly plunged from cruising altitude and nosedived.
As investigators search for the plane’s two crash-proof recorders and begin poring over clues, they will be trying to determine why the jet made such an abrupt and severe dive, which sets it apart from earlier accidents.
They will be looking at the weather the plane encountered, whether the pilots made any distress calls, any hints in the wreckage of possible malfunctions and detailed profiles of the crew.
China Eastern said it will ground all of its Boeing 737-800 jets starting Tuesday.
The President of China, Xi Jinping, has urged rescue efforts following the crash, state TV reported.
Videos posted on social media showed a large fire within a forest at the purported crash site.
China Eastern has released a statement confirming the facts of the crash and adding details of an emergency assistance phone line for family members.
China Eastern’s website, mobile app, and some of its social media platforms were turned to black and white in a sign of mourning.
New York Stock Exchange-listed Boeing’s shares were down 6.6 percent in pre-market trading in New York, after falling as much as 7.5 percent earlier.
The last fatal crash involving Shanghai-based China Eastern was in 2004, when an airliner bound for the financial center crashed in Inner Mongolia, killing 53 people on board and two people on the ground.
The last major incident at the airline was in June 2013, when an Embraer SA jet skidded off the runway while landing in Shanghai, according to the Aviation Safety Network.
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