The China Eastern flight from Kunming to Guangzhou departed at 1.11 pm local time.
New Delhi:
A China Eastern passenger jet carrying has crashed in southwest China and caused a mountain fire with an unknown number of casualties, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said.
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The jet was a 6-year-old Boeing 737-800NG aircraft and was carrying 132 people. It had 123 passengers and nine crew on board.
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It crashed in the rural countryside near Wuzhou city, Guangxi region and “caused a mountain fire”, Chinese state media CCTV said. One villager told a local news site that the plane involved in the crash had “completely fallen apart” and he had seen nearby forest areas destroyed by a fire caused when the plane crashed onto the mountainside.
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The aircraft involved wasn’t a new-generation Boeing Max jet, the model involved in previous fatal crashes. The re-engined Max narrow-body was grounded in March 2019 in the wake of fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. That particular make of plane still hasn’t returned to commercial service in China.
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Rescue teams have reportedly been dispatched to the scene. “The CAAC has activated the emergency mechanism and sent a working group to the scene,” the civil aviation administration said in a statement.
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The China Eastern flight MU5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou departed at 1.11 pm local time (0511 GMT), FlightRadar24 data showed.
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The flight-tracking ended at 2.22 pm local time (0622 GMT) at an altitude of 3225 feet with a speed of 376 knots. It had been due to land in Guangzhou, on the east coast, at 3:05 p.m. (0705 GMT).
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The website of China Eastern Airlines was later presented in black and white, which airlines do in response to a crash as a sign of respect for the assumed victims.
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Shares of Boeing fell 6.8% to $179.97 in pre-market U.S. trading. Stock in Shanghai-based China Eastern fell as much as 6.4% in late trading in Hong Kong.
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The safety record of China’s airline industry has been among the best in the world over the past decade.
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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 in low visibility.
