All 132 people on board | Plane crashed in China
WRITTEN BY:- SONALI SINGH
On Monday, a Chinese passenger plane carrying 132 people crashed in a mountainous location in southern China, killing all passengers and crew.
According to state media accounts; a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 flight from Kunming, southwest China, to Guangzhou, southern China, plunged in freefall before crashing into the Guangxi autonomous region on Monday afternoon, starting a forest fire.
None of the 123 passengers and nine crew members likely survived.
China Eastern, one of China’s three major carriers, said the reason for the incident was being investigated. According to flight-tracking website FlightRadar24, the plane dropped at a final pace of 31,000 feet per minute immediately before the crash.
“China Eastern Airlines has activated the emergency mechanism, dispatched a working group to the scene, and established a dedicated line for emergency support to family members,” the carrier announced on Twitter.
A provincial firefighting department official was quoted by the Communist Party of China’s mouthpiece People’s Daily as saying that there was no trace of life among the wreckage.
“Shocked” is the word that comes to mind. President Xi Jinping has called a probe into the crash’s causes.
China’s civil aircraft safety record has been excellent in recent decades, with notable improvements since the 1990s.
In China, the most recent serious aircraft disaster involving civilians occurred in 2010.
MU 5735, the ill-fated flight, took off from Kunming airport in Yunnan province at 1:15 p.m. local time on Monday and was expected to arrive at 3:07 p.m. local time in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province in south China.
The plane, on the other hand, vanished from the radars of civil aviation authorities who were watching the journey, causing fear among regulators.
Local villagers who witnessed the crash reported the incident to local authorities shortly after.
According to the local emergency department, the collision occurred in a town near Wuzhou City in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Firefighters were among the first responders to arrive at the scene.
Hundreds of rescue workers from several places had fanned out around the crash scene by late evening, looking for survivors.
Villagers’ post-crash footage became viral on Chinese social media.
Unverified videos showed flames and smoke billowing from the crash scene and neighboring woodlands, as well as scattering airplane debris on the ground.
According to the official news agency Xinhua, Xi ordered all-out search and rescue efforts as well as “rapid action” to determine the reason for the disaster.
“I was stunned to learn about the incident involving China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735…and immediately ordered the launch of an emergency response, all-out search and rescue efforts, and proper settlement of the aftermath,” Xi stated.
The probe will focus on whether the incident was caused by a human mistake or a technical glitch.
“The plane belonged to China Eastern Airlines’ Yunnan affiliate and had been in service for just over six and a half years. The plane was delivered in June of 2015, according to the tabloid Global Times.
The aircraft has a total of 162 seats, with 12 in business class and 150 in economy class.
Experts are astonished that the incident occurred while the plane was cruising.
“During cruise-stage, the plane is usually on auto-pilot. As a result, it’s difficult to comprehend what happened,” said Li Xiaojin, a Chinese aviation expert, to Reuters. “Things like this should not have happened from a technological standpoint,” Li added.
The incident on Monday tarnished China’s civil aviation safety record.
“In 2020, China’s civil aviation industry performed in a stable and controllable manner in terms of safe operation. With the 10-year rolling value of major transport accident rate per million movements and the 10-year rolling value of death toll per 100 million passenger-km both standing at zero; ” the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in its 2020 report released in February.
According to the report, “there were 18 general aviation incidents in 2020, resulting in 13 deaths.”
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