China’s aviation authority announced on its website that a Boeing 737 passenger plane carrying 132 people had crashed.
According to previous reports, there were 133 people onboard. Official figures now show that the plane had 123 passengers and nine crew members on board.
Eastern Airlines’ plane crashed in China’s Guangxi province, according to CCTV. According to Chinese state media, the crash resulted in a forest fire.
Flight MU5735 was reportedly traveling from Kunming to Guangzhou, covering a distance of approximately 2 hours.
According to data from global flight tracker Flightradar24, the plane descended from 29,100 feet in just one minute.
Rescue efforts are underway, and the number of casualties has yet to be determined.
The emergency mechanism has been activated, and a working group has been dispatched to the scene by China’s Civil Aviation Administration, The Quint reported.
In a country crisscrossed by newly built airports and serviced by new airlines established to match the country’s breakneck growth over the last few decades, China had an admirable air safety record in recent years, according to CBS News.
In 2010, a Henan Airlines flight crashed in Heilongjiang province in northeastern China, killing at least 42 of the 92 people on board, though the final toll was never confirmed.
It was the last time a Chinese commercial passenger plane crashed, killing civilians. A China Northwest Airlines crash in 1994 was the deadliest Chinese commercial flight crash, killing all 160 people on board.
