A China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800NG plane carrying 132 people crashed in China’s southwestern province of Guangxi, on a domestic flight on Monday. Media said there was no sign of survivors.
According to FlightRadar24, China Eastern flight MU5735 was traveling from Kunming to Guangzhou, and radar tracking shows the aircraft descending steeply, Bloomberg reports.
Eyewitness videos posted to social media showed a forest fire on a mountainside at what was purported to be the crash site. China Central Television said the blaze that was triggered by the crash has now been put out.
The crash was confirmed by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, or CAAC, which said there were 123 passengers and nine crew members on board.
China Eastern lost contact with the aircraft over the city of Wuzhou, CAAC said. The regulator said it initiated an emergency response and has dispatched a working group to the scene.
Representatives for China Eastern and Boeing weren’t immediately available for comment.
The China Eastern crash comes at a bad time for Boeing, which is preparing for the re-entry of its 737 Max into commercial service in the country, a lucrative aviation market. Bloomberg News reported earlier this month that Boeing had flown a Max to its completion and delivery center in Zhoushan, China, for the first time since the model received recertification.
Shares of Boeing fell 6.8 per cent to US$179.97 in pre-market U.S. trading. Stock in Shanghai-based China Eastern fell as much as 6.4 per cent in late trading in Hong Kong.