Boeing 737 passenger jet crashes in China with 132 people on board
A China Eastern Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board plunged midflight and crashed in a mountainous area of southern China on Monday, according to officials and flight-tracking data. Flight MU5735 left Kunming at 1:11 p.m. local time (1:11 a.m. ET) and was due to arrive at Guangzhou in the southeast of the country in less than two hours, according to information on FlightRadar24. The plane was cruising at 29,100 feet and began a sharp descent after 2:20 p.m., recovering more than 1,000 feet briefly then resuming the dive before it lost contact. It fell more than 25,000 feet in about two minutes. “This kind of tragedy is extremely unusual,” Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, said of the plane’s sudden, sharp drop from its cruising altitude. China’s Civil Aviation Administration said it was sending a team to the crash site in the Guangxi region. Investigators will work to recover so-called black boxes that contain cockpit voice recordings and flight data. They are also likely to examine the aircraft’s previous flights, maintenance history, weather data and pilot health. Chinese state media said the crash had caused a fire in the mountains. If all 123 passengers and nine crew members are confirmed dead, it would be China’s deadliest airline crash since 1994 and the deadliest ever for China Eastern. The 737NG, or Next Generation is the model Boeing released before the Max. It has one of the best safety records of any aircraft with 11 fatal accidents out of more than 7,000 NG planes that have been delivered to customers since 1997, according to aviation data and consulting firm Cirium.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2022-03-22/sky/boeing-737-passenger-jet-crashes-in-china-with-132-people-on-board
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Boeing 737 passenger jet crashes in China with 132 people on board
A China Eastern Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board plunged midflight and crashed in a mountainous area of southern China on Monday, according to officials and flight-tracking data. Flight MU5735 left Kunming at 1:11 p.m. local time (1:11 a.m. ET) and was due to arrive at Guangzhou in the southeast of the country in less than two hours, according to information on FlightRadar24. The plane was cruising at 29,100 feet and began a sharp descent after 2:20 p.m., recovering more than 1,000 feet briefly then resuming the dive before it lost contact. It fell more than 25,000 feet in about two minutes. “This kind of tragedy is extremely unusual,” Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, said of the plane’s sudden, sharp drop from its cruising altitude. China’s Civil Aviation Administration said it was sending a team to the crash site in the Guangxi region. Investigators will work to recover so-called black boxes that contain cockpit voice recordings and flight data. They are also likely to examine the aircraft’s previous flights, maintenance history, weather data and pilot health. Chinese state media said the crash had caused a fire in the mountains. If all 123 passengers and nine crew members are confirmed dead, it would be China’s deadliest airline crash since 1994 and the deadliest ever for China Eastern. The 737NG, or Next Generation is the model Boeing released before the Max. It has one of the best safety records of any aircraft with 11 fatal accidents out of more than 7,000 NG planes that have been delivered to customers since 1997, according to aviation data and consulting firm Cirium.<br/>
