A China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 crashed on Monday afternoon in China’s Wuzhou region with 132 people on board, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) confirmed.
The aircraft took off from Kunming shortly after 13:00 and about 1 hour and 10 minutes disappeared, according to data recorded by FlightRadar24 – the destination of flight MU5735 was the city of Guagnzhou, near Hong Kong.
CAAC issued a short statement confirming that the aircraft had crashed and that it had 123 passengers and nine crew on board. According to data from ADS-B, the 737 would have started its descent at 06:20 (UTC time).
Altitude data shows that the Boeing jet stopped its descent at 06:22 when it was around 7,400 feet and returned to climb to about 8,600 feet before re-entering a steep descent. The last recorded data point was at 06:22:35 at 3225 feet.
The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 – B-1791 registration – was quite new, having flown for the first time in June 2015 and belongs to Yamasa Aircraft Leasing.
CAAC claimed to have triggered an emergency plan and sent a working group to the scene.