GUANGZHOU, China —
China Eastern confirmed there had
been fatalities after a jet carrying 132 people crashed into a mountain in
southern China on Monday, shortly after losing contact with air traffic control
and dropping thousands of meters in just three minutes.
اضافة اعلان
The Boeing 737-800 flight from the city of Kunming to the
southern hub of Guangzhou "lost airborne contact over Wuzhou" city in
the Guangxi region on Monday afternoon, according to the
Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
The jet was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members.
China Eastern confirmed late Monday that at least some
people involved in the crash had been killed, without providing more
information or giving details on any survivors.
"The company expresses its deep condolences for the
passengers and crew members who died in the plane crash," the airline said
in a statement.
The disaster prompted an unusually swift public reaction
from
President Xi Jinping, who said he was "shocked" and ordered an
immediate investigation into its cause.
Hundreds of firefighters were dispatched to the scene in
Teng county near Wuzhou, state media reported, as nearby villagers rushed to
help the rescue effort.
"Everyone went to the mountains," Tang Min, who
runs a restaurant a few kilometers from the crash site, told AFP by telephone.
Fears for the fate of the jet spread on Monday afternoon as
local media reported that China Eastern flight MU5735 had not arrived as
planned in Guangzhou after taking off from Kunming shortly after 1pm (5am GMT).
Flight tracking website
FlightRadar24 showed no data for the
flight after 2:22pm.
The tracker showed the plane sharply dropped from an
altitude of 8,870m to 982m in three minutes, before flight information ceased.
One villager told a local news site that the plane had
"completely fallen apart" and he had seen forest areas destroyed by
the fire it caused when crashing into the mountainside.
China Eastern changed its website to black and white only on
Monday afternoon.
A January company report said China Eastern had 289 Boeing
737-series aircraft in its 751-strong fleet.
State broadcaster CCTV said it had learned that China
Eastern will ground all its 787-800 jets as a precaution after the crash.
Boeing said in a statement that it was "aware of the
initial media reports and ... working to gather more information".
'Shock'
Xi called for "all efforts" towards the rescue and
to find out the "cause of the accident as soon as possible",
according to CCTV.
"We are shocked to learn of the China Eastern MU5735
accident," he said, calling for "the absolute safety of the sector
and people's lives".
The arrivals board at
Guangzhou airport showed the jet's
flight information for hours after it had crashed, as staff in full PPE held up
signs to direct distraught relatives to a separate area that had been set up to
receive them.
One relative waiting in Guangzhou airport told local media
that she had been due to board the flight, but had changed her booking at the
last minute to an earlier plane.
Her sister and four friends had taken the crashed plane, she
added.
Now she was just "waiting for news", she said.
"I feel very sad."
A villager near the crash site surnamed Liu told state-run
China News Service that he had driven a motorbike to the scene after hearing a
loud explosion.
He said he saw debris on the ground, including an aircraft
wing and fragments of clothing hanging from trees.
China had enjoyed an enviable air safety record in recent
years as the country was crisscrossed by newly built airports and serviced by
new airlines established to match breakneck growth over the last few decades.
A Henan Airlines flight crashed in northeastern Heilongjiang
province in 2010, killing at least 42 out of 92 people on board, although the
final toll was never confirmed. It was the last Chinese commercial flight crash
that caused civilian casualties.
The deadliest Chinese commercial flight crash was a China
Northwest Airlines crash in 1994, which killed all 160 onboard.
Jean-Paul Troadec, former director of the Bureau of Enquiry
and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, told AFP it was "far too
early" to draw conclusions, but added that the Flightradar data was
"very unusual".
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