BEIJING: A China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737, carrying 132 people on board, crashed on Monday in a mountainous area of the country’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, according to emergency officials.
Flight MU5735 took off from Kunming at 1.11 p.m. (local time) and was scheduled to arrive in Guangzhou at 3.05 p.m. According to Guangxi’s regional emergency management department, the crash took place on a mountain in Tengxian County, causing a huge fire, reports Xinhua news agency.
Of the 132 people, 123 were passengers and nine crew members, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said. The CAAC said it has initiated the emergency response mechanism and dispatched a working team to the site. The number of casualties was not immediately known. China Eastern is also yet to issue a statement on the crash.
Flight tracking sites said that the plane was in the air for just over an hour, the BBC reported. According to FlightRadar24 data, the last sourced information on flight MU5735 showed it ended at 2.22 p.m., at an altitude of 3,225 ft.
Chinese state media have shared video footages, showing plane debris, a massive blaze and smoke billowing from the crash site. The last major plane crash in China took place in August 2010, when a flight from Harbin crashed in Yichun killing 42 people.
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