JAKARTA - Rescue teams in China scoured a heavily forested slope on Tuesday for victims and the black box of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800, which crashed the day before in the mountains of southern Guangxi with 132 passengers and crew on board.
The wreckage of the plane was strewn on the slopes of a scorched mountain after China's first crash involving a commercial jet since 2010. Burnt remains of identity cards and wallets were also seen, state media reported.
The plane, flight MU5735, was en route from Kunming, the capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, to the port city of Guangzhou when it suddenly fell from cruising altitude, at a time when it would normally begin to descend before landing.
Chinese media displayed brief highway video footage from the vehicle's dashcam, which appeared to show the jet plunging into the ground at an angle of about 35 degrees in a vertical position. Reuters could not immediately verify the footage.
Si, 64, a villager near the crash site who declined to give his first name, told Reuters he heard "bang, bang" at the time of the crash.
"It's like thunder!" he said, citing Reuters March 22.
State media described the situation as "gloomy", and the possibility of all passengers and crew on board being killed could not be ruled out.
The crash site is surrounded by mountains on three sides, according to state media reports, with access provided only by one small lane. Rain is expected in the region this week.
To help with the search and evacuation process, excavators cleared the road to the crash site on Tuesday, state television showed.
Earlier, video footage from the People's Daily showed search-and-rescue workers and paramilitary troops climbing tree-covered hills and placing markers wherever debris was found.
The police set up a checkpoint in Lu village, as they approached the site, and barred reporters from entering.
Separately, US-based aviation analyst Robert Mann of RW Mann & Company said investigators will need flight data recorders to understand what might have caused the sudden drop, predicts Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data, a technology that enables aircraft to track.
"Accidents that begin at cruising altitude are usually the result of weather, intentional sabotage, or pilot error," Dan Elwell, former head of the Federal Aviation Administration, told Reuters.
Elwell, who led the FAA during the 737-MAX crisis, said mechanical failures on modern commercial jets were rare at cruising altitude.
To note, China Eastern Airlines and its two subsidiaries on Monday grounded its 737-800 fleet. The group owns 225 aircraft, according to data from British aviation consultancy IBA.
Meanwhile, other Chinese airlines had not canceled their flights using 737-800 aircraft as of Tuesday, according to data from China's aviation data provider Flight Master.
The last crash of a commercial jetliner in China was in 2010, when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed in northeastern China, killing 44 of the 96 people on board.
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