Rescuers comb forest for survivors from flight MU5735

Chinese authorities have not reported any signs of survivors from a plane that crashed into a mountain range, more than 12 hours after it first lost contact.

The China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 is set to become the country’s worst air disaster in three decades as hundreds of rescue workers comb through the remote mountainside outside Wuzhou.

The emergency workers pushed through the night in the south-eastern Chinese province of Guangxi, with hospital staff in Wuzhou on standby, but no passengers have made it to an emergency room. Villagers reported hearing a large boom on Monday afternoon, before a plume of smoke rose above the mountain tops that could be seen up to five kilometres away.

Families of the 132 people on board have gathered at Kunming and Guangzhou airports, desperate to hear news of their relatives but increasingly losing hope as more accounts from the ground reveal a shattered fuselage. There were no foreign nationals aboard the flight, Chinese state broadcaster CGTN reported.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Australian representatives in China were making urgent enquiries with the airline and local authorities to ascertain whether any Australians were on board.

The airline said on Tuesday morning that it would cooperate with the investigations as President Xi Jinping called for “all-out efforts” to find survivors and the cause of the crash. China Eastern has grounded all of its Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

“The company has attached great importance to the incident and immediately activated the emergency response plan,” China Eastern said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ahead of its reopening on Tuesday.

Shares in China Eastern Airlines in Hong Kong closed down 6.5 per cent after news of the crash broke on Monday night. Boeing’s stock price dropped more than 8 per cent in premarket trading.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his thoughts were with “all of the families caught up in this tragedy”. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “deeply shocked and saddened to learn about the crash”. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said Pakistan shared the “grief of our Chinese brothers and sisters”.

Flight MU5735 was on its way from Kunming to Guangzhou on Monday but lost contact just over an hour into its flight. Its last contact with flight trackers was made 900 metres above sea level in the mountains that surround Wuzhou.

Villagers were the first to arrive at the forested site. The crash sparked a blaze big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images. Hundreds of rescue workers were swiftly dispatched from Guangxi and neighbouring Guangdong province.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said it had “activated the emergency mechanism and sent a working group to the scene”. It said the plane had 123 passengers and nine crew on board.

The Chutian Metropolis Daily reported that a village official who was involved in the rescue efforts said the plane had disintegrated, and he could not see the remains of victims at the crash site.

FlightRadar24 data shows the plane dropped from its cruising altitude of 8840 metres to 900 metres above sea level in two minutes and 15 seconds - a rapid almost vertical descent at more than 840 kilometres an hour. The data suggests the plane crashed within a minute and a half of whatever went wrong.

There was no word on the cause of the crash of the plane, a six-year-old 737-800 aircraft, according to the flight tracking website.

The flight could be a Chinese carrier’s worst air disaster since 1992 when 141 people were killed on a flight from Guangzhou to Guilin. More than 150 Chinese passengers were killed along with six Australians when flight Malaysian Airlines MH370 crashed in 2014.

The safety record of China’s airline industry has been among the best in the world over the past decade.

Chicago-based Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The twin-engine, single-aisle Boeing 737 is one of the world’s most popular planes for short and medium-haul flights. China Eastern operates multiple versions of the common aircraft, including the 737-800 and the 737 Max.

The 737 Max version was grounded worldwide after two fatal crashes. China’s aviation regulator cleared that plane to return to service late last year, making the country the last major market to do so.

with AP, Reuters

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