Chinese State Media Reveals No Survivors Yet Found From China Eastern Plane Crash

No survivors have been found in the wreckage of Flight MU-5735, which descended towards the ground at over 20,000 feet in just over a minute. The China Eastern flight carried 132 people and crashed in a forested mountainous area near the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region, according to reports.

“Wreckage of the plane was found at the scene, but up until now, none of those aboard the plane with whom contact was lost have been found," state broadcaster CCTV said over 18 hours after the plane crashed.

The flight was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, issued a statement following the crash calling for rescuers to do their utmost while the Chinese central government dispatched officials to the crash site in order to investigate its cause.

Reports have detailed that a that fire ignited from the crash was so large it could be seen on NASA satellite images.

Xinhua news agency reported that the crash created a deep pit in the mountainside, citing rescuer reports. A search crew, as well as drones, will be looking for the airplane’s black box, which is essential to plane crash investigations as it holds both flight data recordings as well as a cockpit voice recorder.

The flight was leaving Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan Province, for a flight headed east towards Guangzhou, which should have taken an hour and a half. The plane was flying at an altitude of 29,100 feet and flying at a speed of 455 knots (523 mph). In over a minute, it plunged more than 21,000 feet. However, appearing to regain altitude at 8,000 feet, it ultimately failed and struck the ground.

The plane was about an hour into its flight, and was nearing the point of when it was supposed to begin its descent into Guangzhou.

Twin crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving Boeing's 737 Max planes prompted the grounding of their troubled model after the deadly crashes were caused by technical issues in the plane's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System. Boeing attempted to pass off the faulty technology as the fault of the flight pilots, or as "human error" but later analysis proved the system was at the root of the crashes.

That scandal cost the company over $2.5 billion after they were charged with conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration Aircraft Evaluation Group (FAA AEG).

It has been reported that the Boeing 737-800 NG model that crashed on Monday is considered to be highly safe. It is a 6 year-old jet that preceded the faulty 737 Max as part of the Next Generation (NG) series responsible for only 11 fatal plane accidents out of 7,000 planes.

“The 737 NG has been in operation for 25 years and has an excellent safety record,” said Paul Hayes, director of air safety and insurance at Cirium, the aviation consultancy company. “I’m not going to speculate on what happened but if the Flightradar24 logs are accurate, something seems to have happened abruptly and the plane nose dived from cruising altitude.”

The state has made the decision nonetheless to ground all 737-800s in China Eastern’s fleet, which, with 1,200 planes, means China has more planes of this model than of any other country.

Rescue operations remain ongoing in the area.

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