China Eastern Boeing 737 Crashes in Guangxi
We have some terrible news today out of China. A passenger plane carrying 132 people has crashed in the southern region of the country. There were 123 passengers and nine crew members.
The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 departed from Kunming and was flying to Guangzhou when it crashed in the Guangxi province and caught on fire. Villagers were first to arrive at the forested area where the plane went down. The blaze was big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images.
Flight tracking data suggested the plane lost height rapidly from its cruising altitude before plummeting to the ground. There are scarce details as to why the crash occurred and the number of casualties. So far there are no good signs, as BBC reports that rescuers have yet to find any survivors.
China Eastern’s flight No. 5735 had been traveling at around 30,000 feet when suddenly, just after 2:20 p.m., the plane entered a deep dive at its cruising altitude speed of 455 knots (523 mph, 842 kph), according to data from flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.com. The data suggests the plane crashed within about a minute and a half after the initial issues.
The aircraft was delivered to China Eastern from Boeing in June 2015 and had been flying for more than six years. The airline currently has 109 Boeing 737-800s. The twin-engine, single aisle Boeing 737 is one of the world’s most popular planes for short and medium-haul flights.
The deadliest crash involving a Boeing 737-800 was in January 2020, when Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard accidentally shot down a Ukraine International Airlines plane, killing all 176 people on board.
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