(Beijing) A Boeing-737 with 132 people on board crashed in southern China on Monday after a brutal fall of 8,000 meters, a plane crash that could prove the deadliest in this country since 1994.
Posted at 6:31 a.m.
Updated at 9:54 am
No death toll had been published Monday evening Beijing time more than six hours after the disaster which prompted a hot reaction from President Xi Jinping, unusual for a Chinese leader.
But looking at the data from the crash, it seemed unlikely that anyone made it out alive. In a statement, the airline, China Eastern Airlines, “paid tribute” to the “dead” of the disaster.
According to the specialized site FlightRadar24, the aircraft lost nearly 26,000 feet (7,925 m) in the space of three minutes before disappearing from radar screens after 2:22 p.m. local time (2:22 a.m. EDT).
Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 took off shortly after 1 p.m. local time (1 a.m. EDT) from the southwest metropolis of Kunming. His destination was Canton (South), some 1300 km away.
The 737-800, which was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew, “lost contact over the city of Wuzhou” in the mountainous region of Guangxi, the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC) said. ).
The plane “was pulverized,” a local resident told local media.
” Shocked “
The accident “caused a fire” in the mountain, said state broadcaster CCTV, which broadcast footage of firefighters heading to the crash site through a mountainous, tree-lined area. Rescuers extinguished the flames.
“All the inhabitants took the initiative to help the relief workers. Everyone went to the mountain, ”a trader named Tang Min, who lives about four kilometers from the site of the impact, told AFP by telephone.
President Xi Jinping said he was “in shock” after the accident, the Xinhua News Agency reported. The strong man from Beijing called for “determining the causes of the accident as soon as possible”.
From the United States, Boeing said it was trying “to gather more information”.
According to the financial media Yicai, China Eastern decided without waiting for the results of the investigation to suspend all its 737-800s from Tuesday. The company could not be reached to comment on this information.
Rare disasters
Plane accidents are relatively rare in China, a country where air traffic has grown considerably in recent decades and safety measures are generally strict.
The last major accident in the country dates back to August 2010. A flight from the Chinese company Henan Airlines then crashed in the northeast of the country and killed around 40 people.
The heaviest toll for a commercial flight dates back to 1994. A China Northwest Airlines Tupolev 154 crashed shortly after takeoff from Xi’an (north), killing all 160 people on board.
Many Chinese passengers also perished in March 2014 during the enigmatic disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, bound for Beijing.
Monday’s air disaster is another blow for Boeing in China.
In March 2019, the country was the very first in the world to order its companies to suspend flights of 737 MAX aircraft for security reasons.
The announcement followed two accidents in a few months abroad, which had killed 346 people.
Nearly three years after these setbacks, the Chinese regulator finally lifted its flight ban for the Boeing 737 MAX last December. It is unclear whether these aircraft have resumed commercial flights in China again.
This decision was eagerly awaited by Boeing, of which China is an important market.
The regulator notably conditioned the return of the 737 MAX in the Chinese sky to technical modifications on the planes, in order to guarantee flight safety.
China was the last major country to lift the ban on the aircraft.