A China Eastern Airlines passenger plane carrying 132 people has crashed in southern China, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Monday.
There was no information about any casualties in the incident, which took place on Monday afternoon, as yet.
The Boeing 737 plane crashed in the countryside near Wuzhou city in the Guangxi region. It “caused a mountain [of] fire”, CCTV said, adding that rescue teams were dispatched to the scene.
The plane in a flight from Kunming city to the southern hub of Guangzhou “lost airborne contact over Wuzhou” city in the Guangxi region, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in an online announcement.
“At present, it has been confirmed that this flight has crashed,” the CAAC said, adding that it had activated its emergency response and “dispatched a working group to the scene.”
There was no word on the cause of the crash of the plane, which flight-tracking website Flightradar24 identified as a six-year-old 737-800 aircraft.
Local media reported that flight MU5735 had not arrived at its scheduled destination in Guangzhou after it took off from the city of Kunming shortly after 1 pm (05:00 GMT), citing airport staff.
The flight-tracking ended at 2:22 pm (06:22 GMT) at an altitude of 3,225 feet (983 meters) and a speed of 376 knots (696km/hour). It had been due to land at 3:05 pm (07:05 GMT).
“We are shocked to learn of the China Eastern MU5735 accident,” Chinese President Xi Jinping was quoted as saying by state broadcaster CCTV. He also called for “all efforts” to be taken to rescue any survivors and to find out the “cause of the accident as soon as possible.”
China Eastern Airlines is one of the “Big Three” airlines of China
China Eastern Airlines is one of the “Big Three” airlines (alongside Air China and China Southern Airlines) of the People’s Republic of China, operating international, domestic and regional routes.
Hongqiao airport, along with the larger Shanghai Pudong International Airport, are China Eastern’s main hubs, with secondary hubs in Beijing Daxing, Kuming, and Xi’an.
China Eastern Airlines is China’s second-largest carrier by passenger numbers after China Southern Airlines.
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