REPORTS: China Eastern 737 crashes

A China Eastern Airlines aircraft with 133 people on board crashed in mountains in south China on Monday while on a flight from the city of Kunming to Guangzhou, state media reported. The jet involved in the accident was a Boeing 737 aircraft and the number of casualties was not immediately known, CCTV said. There was no word on the cause of the crash of the plane, a six-year-old 737-800 aircraft, according to Flightradar24. The China Eastern flight from Kunming to Guangzhou departed at 1:11 p.m. (0511 GMT), FlightRadar24 data showed. The flight tracking ended at 2:22 p.m. (0622 GMT) an altitude of 3,225 feet with a speed of 376 knots. It had been due to land at 3:05 p.m. (0705 GMT). The safety record of China’s airline industry has been among the best in the world over the past decade. According to Aviation Safety Network, China’s last fatal jet accident was in 2010, when 44 of 96 people on board were killed when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed on approach to Yichun airport in low visibility. The aircraft involved wasn’t a new-generation Boeing MAX jet, the model involved in previous fatal crashes. The re-engined MAX narrowbody was grounded in March 2019 in the wake of fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. That particular make of plane still hasn’t returned to commercial service in China. For Editorial Inquiries Contact: Editor Matt Driskill at [email protected] For Advertising Inquiries Contact: Head of Sales Kay Rolland at [email protected]