China Eastern Airlines Accident: Airline Conducts Investigation, Says No Foreign Passengers

Illustration of a Boeing 737-800 belonging to China Eastern Airlines. (Wikimedia Commons/lasta29)

JAKARTA - A Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board belonging to China Eastern Airlines, crashed in the mountains of southern China on a domestic flight on Monday, after suffering a sudden drop in altitude, with media saying there was no sign of survivors.

The airline said it was deeply saddened by passengers and crew, without specifying how many people died on the jet. Meanwhile, Boeing said it was ready to help China Eastern and had contacted the US transportation safety regulator over the incident.

Chinese media displayed brief highway video footage from vehicle dashboards, allegedly showing the plane plunging into the ground behind trees at an angle of about 35 degrees vertically. Citing Reuters March 22, the footage could not immediately verify the footage.

The plane was en route from the southwestern city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong, when it crashed.

China Eastern said the cause of the crash was being investigated. Such accidents usually involve multiple factors, while experts warn it is too early to draw conclusions about potential causes, especially given the scarcity of available information.

Investigators will examine the debris and flight recorders for factors that could have caused the plane to fall vertically and hit mountains at high speed.

The airline said it had sent a working group to the site. There were no foreigners on the flight, Chinese state television reported, citing China Eastern.

Relatives, friends, and colleagues of the passengers gathered on Monday night in a closed area at the jet's destination, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport.

A man surnamed Yan said a colleague was on the plane that crashed, with him having informed the mother of the 29-year-old man.

"When he picked up the phone, he choked," Yan said, adding that he was "heavy-hearted" when he heard the news, citing Reuters March 22.

Illustration of China Eastern Airlines headquarters. (Wikimedia Commons/WhisperToMe)

China Eastern staff are making arrangements for relatives who wish to travel to the crash site on Tuesday, Yan said. Reuters was unable to independently verify Yan's identity.

The plane, with 123 passengers and nine crew on board, lost contact over Wuzhou City, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the airline said. The flight left Kunming at 13:11 p.m. local time, FlightRadar24 data shows, then was scheduled to land in Guangzhou at 3:05 p.m. local time.

The plane, which Flightradar24 said was six years old, had flown at an altitude of 29,100 feet as of 0620 GMT. It then began a rapid descent to 7.425 feet before recovering to 8.600 feet and then rapidly descending again, FlightRadar24 data showed. The last altitude tracked was 3.225 feet above sea level.

Media quoted a rescue official as saying the plane was destroyed and caused a fire that destroyed a bamboo tree. The People's Daily quoted a provincial fire department official as saying there was no sign of life among the rubble.

Meanwhile, state media showed a piece of the plane on a hillside of scarred dirt. No sign of fire or personal belongings. Weather data online showed partly cloudy conditions with good visibility in Wuzhou at the time of the crash.

As a result of the crash, China Eastern Airlines has grounded its 737-800 aircraft, state media reported. FlightRadar24 data, the airline has 109 aircraft.

In response to the China Eastern Airline plane crash, President Xi Jinping asked investigators to determine the cause of the crash as soon as possible, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Separately, Boeing said in a statement that its thoughts were with the passengers and crew.

"Boeing is in contact with the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and our technical experts are on hand to assist with the (CAAC)-led investigation," the company said.

The disaster comes as Boeing tries to emerge from several overlapping crises, including the coronavirus pandemic and a crash involving its 737 MAX model.

Aviation data provider OAG said this month that state-owned China Eastern Airlines was the sixth-largest in the world, based on scheduled weekly seat capacity and the largest in China.

In addition, China's aviation industry's safety record is among the best in the world over the past decade. According to the Aviation Safety Network, China's last fatal jet crash occurred in 2010, when 44 of the 96 people on board died when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed while approaching Yichun airport in low visibility.