Footage shows moment China Eastern Boeing 737 nosedives before fiery crash

by · New York Post

Horrifying footage has captured the apparent moment a China Eastern Boeing 737 that was carrying 132 people mysteriously fell from the sky and erupted into flames in southern China on Monday.

The video — shared by local media — showed the plane nosediving towards the ground near the city of Wuzhou in the southern province of Guangxi in what Chinese officials say is the country’s worst air disaster in nearly a decade.

More than 12 hours after the crash, there has been no official word from the Chinese government on the status of all 132 people on board and it is unclear if anyone survived.

The plane had been cruising at about 30,000 feet just moments before it suddenly started plunging vertically and crashed into remote mountains, sparking a blaze big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images, officials said.

Why the plane suddenly fell from the sky remains a mystery.

Separate footage showed heavy smoke and flames billowing from the crash site in the aftermath. Villagers also found debris from the plane scattered in the region, local media reported.

A China Eastern Boeing 737 that was carrying 132 people fell from the sky and erupted into flame.
China Eastern said the cause of the crash was under investigation.

Despite no immediate word on the number of dead and injured, China Eastern said it deeply mourned those on board.

“The company expresses its sorrowful condolences to the passengers and crew members who died in this plane crash,” the airline said in a statement, CNN reported. 

Investigators will look at many possible causes of the crash — among them deliberate action such as terrorism, technical issues, a mid-air collision and suicide by crash. 

Experts said the plane’s dramatical vertical dive points to a possible mechanical failure. 

The number of fatalities and injuries is unclear.
The plane had been cruising at about 30,000 feet.

“It is very likely that the aircraft lost power at cruising altitude, resulting in the pilot losing control of the aircraft,” Wang Ya’nan, chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge, told China’s Global Times. “This is a very serious technical failure in which the plane inevitably enters a high-speed descent.” 

The plane, which was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members, was in the cruising stage, which experts said is an unusual time for a crash. 

“Usually the plane is on auto-pilot during cruise stage. So it is very hard to fathom what happened,” said Li Xiaojin, a Chinese aviation expert. 

Crashes during the cruise phase of flights are relatively rare even though this phase accounts for the majority of flight time. 

Boeing said last year only 13 percent of fatal commercial accidents globally between 2011 and 2020 occurred during the cruise phase, whereas 28 percent occurred on final approach and 26 percent on landing.

The People’s Daily cited a rescue official as saying Flight 5735 had disintegrated upon crashing and there was no sign of life among the debris.

There were no foreigners on the flight, which had been carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members,  state TV reported, citing the airline.

A map of the area where a passenger jet carrying 132 people has crashed.
The video showed the plane nosediving toward the ground.
Emergency personnel prepare to travel to the site of the plane crash.
Flight 5735 disintegrated upon crashing.

The flight, which had taken off from the city of Kunming in Yunan Province, was en route to Guangzhou when it crashed at about 2:30 p.m. local time, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said.

The weather in Wuzhou at the time of the crash was partly cloudy with good visibility.

Contact with the plane was lost at about 2:15 p.m. local time, the Guangxi provincial emergency management department said.

Data from flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.com suggests the plane crashed within a minute and a half.

China Eastern, the country’s second-largest airline, said the cause of the crash was under investigation and the airline has set up a hotline for relatives of those on board.

The plane suddenly started plunging vertically and crashed into remote mountains.
Separate footage showed heavy smoke and flames.
The flight had been carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members.
Contact with the plane was lost at about 2:15 p.m. local time.

The airline has since changed its website color to black and white, which airlines do in response to a crash as a sign of respect for the assumed victims.

The plane that crashed was a 6-year-old 737-800 aircraft, according to Flightradar24.

 “We are aware of the initial media reports and are working to gather more information,” a Boeing spokesperson said.

All 737-800s in China Eastern’s fleet have been grounded in the wake of the crash, state media reported.

The 737-800 model has a good safety record and is the predecessor to the 737 MAX model that has been grounded in China for more than three years following fatal crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia.

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 flight, killing all 176 people on board.

China’s last deadly crash of a civilian jetliner was in 2010.

The country has one of the best air safety records in the world.

With Post wires