A Boeing 737-800 passenger plane operated by China Eastern Airlines with 132 people on board plummeted into the mountains of the southwestern Chinese province of Guangxi on Monday, starting a forest fire on the ground, state and social media reported.
China Eastern Airlines Flight MU 5735, with nine crew members and 123 passengers on board was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou, state television quoted the Civil Aviation Administration of China as saying.
The surveillance camera of a nearby mine captured a nearly vertical plunge of the jetliner, followed by an explosion. RFA has not been able to confirm the authenticity of the video.
A blogger on China’s Twiiter-like platform Weibo by the name of “My Daily Life with Students” tracked the flight status of flight MU 5735, writing that the jet was at an altitude of nearly 30,000 feet and in just three minutes fell to 10,000 feet.
The plane went down in a rural county of the city of Wuzhou, where a video taken by local villagers shows flames shooting high above trres near the site of the crash.
“Our thoughts are with the passengers and crew of China Eastern Airlines Flight MU 5735,” a Boeing representative said in a statement to ABC News.
“Boeing is in contact with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and our technical experts are prepared to assist with the investigation led by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.”
China Eastern Airlines expressed its deep condolences to those who lost their lives, in a statement that said that all passengers and crew on the flight were Chinese nationals.
China’s most recent domestic crash was in 2010, when a passenger plane went down in Yichun, Heilongjiang province, killing 42.