Plane crash is China’s first commercial air disaster in a decade

China has a strong record on aviation safety, with fatal commercial aircraft crashes unheard of in recent years and airlines operating millions of flying hours without incident. Yet on Monday afternoon local time, a Boeing 737-800 NG flown by China Eastern plunged into the hills of the Guangxi region in the country’s south. The plane was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew. China’s last fatal crash was in 2010, according to Aviation Safety Network, when a Henan Airlines Embraer SA jet carrying 96 people crashed in Yichun in the northeast, killing 44. The country’s worst aviation disaster was in 1994, when a China Northwest Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 crashed after taking off from Xi’an in Shaanxi province en route to Guangzhou. All 160 people on board died. China Eastern’s most recent major incident was in June 2013 when an Embraer jet skidded off a runway in Shanghai, according to Aviation Safety Network. The carrier’s last fatal crash was in 2004, however, when all 53 passengers and crew on a Bombardier aircraft died when it crashed after takeoff in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. <br/>