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Emergency workers have found no survivors more than 24 hours after a Boeing 737 plane carrying 132 people crashed in southern China, officials said Tuesday. Hundreds of firefighters, police officers and paramilitary troops have been scouring the hillsides for survivors, using flashlights into the night on Tuesday. But the likelihood that anyone made it out alive appeared increasingly slim. The China Eastern Airlines plane, Flight MU5735, had plunged from 29,000 feet in the air to earth on Monday in Teng County in the region of Guangxi, scattering burning debris across the remote countryside. At the crash site, workers found parts of the plane, as well as personal belongings such as identity cards, purses and cellphones, news reports said. Emergency workers were also focused on locating the plane’s so-called black boxes, said Zhu Tao, the director of aviation safety at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, “The aircraft was severely damaged in this accident, and the investigation is very difficult,” he said. “With the information currently available, it is still impossible to make a clear judgment on the cause of the accident.” Zhu confirmed a few details about the trajectory of the plane that had emerged in flight data shared by Flightradar24, a tracking platform, while also describing for the first time how air traffic controllers had tried to contact the plane when they noticed something amiss. An aerial picture posted by a state news outlet showed a deep, charred gash in the land that the plane created when it struck a terraced farm field. The falling debris had split trees and bamboo groves, one journalist on the site said, and another report shared footage of the same area covered in white debris.<br/>

China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 was making a short trip between two cities in southern China on Monday, cruising at an altitude of more than 29,000 feet, when it began a violent plunge toward the earth. Residents in the area described hearing a boom, apparently from the plane crashing into a hillside, and then seeing smoke from the fires it had ignited. More than 24 hours later, emergency crews had found no survivors among the 132 people who were on board, officials said. The chances of finding anyone alive appeared slim. “It was in fragments scattered all around,” Li Chenbin, a technician in the area said. “I didn’t see anyone who lived through it.” But workers continued to comb the hilly, rural area, also looking for the Boeing 737-800 jet’s flight recorders. Many questions remain about what led up to the crash of Flight MU5735. Story looks at what we know so far, eg: The plane plummeted more than 20,000 feet in about a minute. Flight MU5735 took off shortly after 1 p.m. on Monday and the first hour of its journey proceeded as normal, Zhu Tao, the director of aviation safety at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said late Tuesday. The plane was cruising at about 29,000 feet around 2:17 p.m., but a few minutes later air traffic controllers noticed the aircraft had suddenly lost altitude. The plane lost more than 20,000 feet in just over a minute, according to Flightradar24, a tracking platform. Air traffic controllers immediately called the plane crew, Mr. Zhu said, but did not receive a reply after several attempts. By 2:23 p.m., the plane’s radar signal disappeared, he said, and it had crashed. Zhu acknowledged that officials had uncovered little information so far.<br/>

For an aircraft like China Eastern’s Boeing 737-800 to crash in midflight is “simply unprecedented,” said one aviation analyst who cited the plane’s excellent safety record. “Air travel is the safest form of transport. But when we do suffer incidents or accidents, we don’t see anything like what we have seen in China over the last 24 hours,” said Alex Macheras, an independent aviation analyst, Tuesday. “This nosedive was simply unprecedented, especially from cruising altitude. We’re talking about the safest phase of the flight. That’s why those answers are going to be needed as soon as possible to determine,” he added. No bodies or survivors have yet been found from the crash as of Tuesday morning, Chinese state media said. The domestic flight was carrying 132 people when it nose-dived Monday afternoon in the southern region of Guangxi. 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 continuing to dive again before it lost contact. It fell more than 25,000 feet in about two minutes. The 737-800 that crashed Monday in China first flew in June 2015. It was not a Boeing 737 Max, the plane that was grounded worldwide after two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. China was one of the first countries to ground the 737 Max after the second of the two crashes. “The aircraft involved was a 6-year-old, so a very young 737-800, which has a stellar safety record all over the globe,” said Macheras. “We are talking about an aircraft that makes up the entire fleet of European low-cost airline Ryanair. An airline aircraft that is in service with American Airlines, Qantas, FlyDubai, Ethiopian, KLM,” he added, saying the plane is used to performing in very difficult conditions.<br/>

Pilots of a doomed China Eastern Airlines Corp. Flight 5735 failed to respond to multiple calls from Chinese air-traffic controllers after tipping into a deadly nosedive, authorities said at a press conference. Investigators are sifting through evidence to understand why the Boeing 737-800 NG plane carrying 132 people crashed in southern China on Monday. It’s too early to draw any clear judgments about the cause, a Chinese air-safety official said late Tuesday. The dive by the China Eastern jet from about 29,000 feet (8,840 m) is baffling air-crash specialists. Boeing has offered to help China’s investigation. China Eastern grounded its fleet of 737-800s, and thousands of domestic flights were canceled Tuesday across the nation. Chinese officials ordered a sweeping two-week safety review.<br/>Air traffic controllers tried multiple times to reach pilots of doomed China Eastern Flight 5735 after it tipped into a deadly dive on Monday but received no response to their calls, an official with CAAC said at a press briefing. The plane disappeared from radar screens at 2:23 p.m. local time, three minutes after it started a steep descent, the official, Zhu Tao, said at the end of the first full day of searching through the wreckage. Based on current information, Chinese officials are unable to make clear judgment about the cause of Monday’s crash, Zhu said. The CAAC ordered a sweeping two-week safety assessment that encompasses air-traffic control bureaus, airlines, airports and flight-training organizations, according to the agency’s CAAC News, which cited an official notice. <br/>

A leading air crash investigator says foul play should be at the top of the list for authorities investigating the crash of China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735, after the flight’s almost vertical descent matched the fate of two previous disasters. Michael Daniel, who worked on investigations into Egypt Air flight 990 and SilkAir flight 185, which were both deliberately crashed by the pilot - according to the US NTSB - also had “very quick and very sudden” dives straight into the ground. “I think that’d be one of the first things I would look at is foul play,” said Daniel. The FAA investigator said the plane had power as it was descending. “So, that kind of rules out a catastrophic type of failure,” he said. “Even with catastrophic failures, a lot of times you’ll see some opportunity for declaring an emergency, or mayday or, or something along those lines. There’s nothing that’s been released here that indicates any kind of distress call. ” Daniel, the senior policy manager at consultancy firm Aviation Insight, said if the horizontal stabiliser, which controls the vertical balance of the aircraft, was stuck, you would still likely see the plan wavering as it descended. But MU5735 fell almost 8000 metres in two minutes, FlightRadar 24 data shows, plunging at such a speed that parts of the plane fell off as it hurtled towards the mountains that surround Wuzhou in southeastern China.<br/>

China Eastern Airlines moved to upgrade cockpit safety protocols following the deadly crash of a Boeing 737-800 NG plane carrying 132 people, The Paper reported. The airline now requires fight crew to be composed of two senior captains with one senior co-pilot, or of two flight instructors with a senior co-pilot, The Paper said. China Eastern grounded its fleet of 737-800s and canceled thousands of domestic flights on Tuesday, in the aftermath of Monday’s crash. <br/>

China Eastern Airlines faces deepening losses and closer regulatory scrutiny following the crash of a Boeing 737-800 jet on Monday with 132 people on board. Rescuers Tuesday scoured heavily forested slopes for survivors and data recorders from flight MU5735, which crashed a day earlier in the mountains of the southern region of Guangxi. The plane crash, China’s first in 12 years, comes as its airline sector is struggling to find its footing amid the coronavirus pandemic, with air passenger traffic far below 2019 levels due to repeated outbreaks and a steep fall in international travel due to China’s strict quarantine rules. China Eastern has been among the biggest casualties: The state carrier forecast in January a 2021 loss of 11-13.5b yuan ($1.7-$2.1b), after a 11.8b yuan loss in 2020. Its losses are set to deepen after the group, including two subsidiaries, grounded its fleet of 737-800s following Monday’s crash. The group has 225 of the aircraft, data from British aviation consultancy IBA shows. “My guess is that in the short term this is going to cause some issues for China Eastern as their maintenance records are reviewed, and there will likely be a short term pullback from Chinese consumers,” said Ben Cavender, managing director at China Market Research Group in Shanghai. Cheng Wang, associate equity analyst at Morningstar, said one of the big risks for China Eastern was if the investigation implies maintenance or other process shortfalls. “We think most of the impact will be in the near term. The indemnity alone will not have a material impact on our fair value estimates. The potential regulatory actions including fines, additional security requirements, or even grounding of aircraft could make a bigger difference.”<br/>