China Eastern Airlines Boeing with 132 on board crashes in China

[BEIJING] A China Eastern Airlines passenger jet with 132 people on board crashed in the mountains of southern China on Monday (Mar 21) while on a flight from the city of Kunming to Guangzhou. The jet involved in the accident was a Boeing 737 aircraft and the number of casualties was not immediately known, state broadcaster CCTV said. Rescue services were on their way to the scene, it said. There was no word on the cause of the crash.

The plane was a 6-year-old 737-800 aircraft, according to Flightradar24.

"Can confirm the plane has crashed," China Eastern Airlines said in a statement in which it also gave details of a hotline for relatives of those on board.

The aircraft, with 123 passengers and 9 crew on board, lost contact over the city of Wuzhou, China's Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the airline said.

CAAC said an emergency team had been sent to the crash site.

Media cited a rescue official as saying the plane had completely disintegrated. A fire sparked by the crash destroyed bamboo and trees before being put out, media reported. China Eastern said it will ground all of its Boeing 737-800 jets starting Tuesday. An emergency telephone assistance line for family was set up and the carrier expressed deep condolences to passengers and crew members onboard.

The flight departed the southwestern city of Kunming at 1.11 pm (0511 GMT), FlightRadar24 data showed, and had been due to land in Guangzhou, on the south coast, at 3.05 pm (0705 GMT).

The plane had been cruising at an altitude 29,100 feet at 0620 GMT, according to FlightRadar24 data. Just over 2 minutes and 15 seconds later, the next available data showed it had descended to 9,075 feet. In another 20 seconds, its last tracked altitude was 3,225 feet.

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. Boeing China's Website also switched to black and white.

Shares of Boeing Co were down 6.4 per cent at US$180.44 in premarket trade. Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Shares in China Eastern Airlines in Hong Kong closed down 6.5 per cent after news of the crash broke, while its onshore-listed shares ended up 2.2 per cent.

Aviation data provider OAG said this month that state-owned China Eastern Airlines was the world's sixth-largest by scheduled weekly seat capacity and the biggest in China.

China has had a relatively strong domestic aviation market during the coronavirus pandemic despite tight curbs on international flights.

The safety record of China's airline industry has been among the best in the world over the past decade.

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.

The 737-800 model that crashed on Monday has a good safety record and is the predecessor to the 737 MAX model that has been grounded in China for more than 3 years following fatal crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia.

In 1994, a China Northwest Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 flying from Xian to Guangzhou was destroyed in an accident after takeoff, killing all 160 people on board and ranking as China's worst-ever air disaster, according to Aviation Safety Network.

'One of the safest planes ever made': aviation analysts

The Boeing Co. 737-800 NG model that crashed in China is considered one of the safest aircraft ever made.

The single-aisle jet is part of the NG, or Next Generation, era that preceded the 737 Max, which was subjected to a global grounding after two deadly crashes. The NG has one of the best safety records among all aircraft, with just 11 fatal accidents out of more than 7,000 planes delivered since 1997, said aviation consultancy Cirium. "The 737 NG has been in operation for 25 years and has an excellent safety record," said Paul Hayes, director of air safety and insurance at Cirium. "I'm not going to speculate on what happened but if the Flightfadar24 logs are accurate, something seems to have happened abruptly and the plane nose dived from cruising altitude."

China Eastern Flight MU5735 sank more than 25,000 feet in the span of just over 2.5 minutes, based on Flightradar24 data. It remained at cruising speed of about 455 knots until about 19 seconds before the end of the data collection. According to Airsafe.com, which tracks aviation safety, NG models had just 0.07 fatal crashes per million flights as of 2019. That puts it among a rare group that includes the Boeing 747-400 and 737's main competitor, the Airbus SE A320 family.

The 737 Max had just been in service for less than two years when it was grounded worldwide in March 2019, after two crashes that killed 346 people. China was the first country to idle the plane and, while it was re-certified there in December following adjustments, the plane hasn't yet been used for commercial flights. Boeing sent a 737 Max to its new completion and delivery centre in Zhoushan, China, earlier this month. "The NG is a completely different aircraft from the 737 Max, which has just gone through a rigorous recertification process," said aerospace industry analyst John Strickland. "I wouldn't expect today's crash to have any bearing on the Max return to service in China." "We are aware of the initial media reports and are working to gather more information," Boeing said in an emailed statement.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG