On March 21st, a China Eastern Boeing 737-800 crashed flying from Kunming to Guangzhou.
Flight MU 5735, a domestic service operated by a Boeing 737 registered B-1791, had 132
people on board when it appeared to have rapidly descended into a mountainous region of China.
Following initial reports, the Civil Aviation
Administration of China confirmed that the aircraft did indeed crash.
FlightRadar24.com appears to have been tracking the aircraft at the time of its crash,
with the service picking up the rapid descent of the 737.
Data shows that the aircraft was cruising at 29,100 feet when the event started.
Flight tracking took a last reading at 29,100 feet at 06:19:59 UTC.
The reading shown here was transmitted from the China Eastern plane at 06:22:16.
According to the plane's transponder, the aircraft lost around 20,000 feet of altitude in 77 seconds.
According to the CAAC, there were 132 people on board the aircraft:
This consisted of 123 passengers and nine crew members. The administration commented,
"On March 21, 2022, a Boeing 737 of China Eastern Airlines lost contact
over Wuzhou during the Kunming-Guangzhou flight... The Civil Aviation Administration
has activated the emergency mechanism and dispatched a working group to the scene."
A video circulating on Twitter appears to show a large area of mountainous
forest engulfed in flames. Commenting on the incident
a Boeing spokesperson told Simple Flying, "We are aware of the initial media reports
and are working to gather more information." The aircraft that is thought to be involved
was a 6.8-year-old 737-800. The aircraft is owned by CES Leasing and operated by
China Eastern Airlines. China Eastern ordered the jet on March 22nd, 2012 and first flew it in 2015.
As of December 31st, 2021, the jet had accumulated 17,708 hours of
flight time across 8,734 flight cycles. The aircraft reported to be involved in
the crash is not a part of the Boeing 737 MAX family that was grounded several years ago.
However, this hasn’t stopped aviation authorities from investigating the affected type.
According to Chinese news outlet Yicai, China Eastern has now said it will ground
all of its Boeing 737-800s effective March 22nd.
The report quotes a statement from China Eastern which reads:
"It is not yet clear whether the cause of the accident is related to the aircraft,
but for safety reasons, the company has decided to suspend the operation of all
its 737-800 aircraft from tomorrow, and the recovery time has not yet been determined."
In total, China Eastern operates 107 -800s alongside 39 737-700s from the same generation.
However, no move has been made to remove these from service.
Over in India, the Directorate General of Civil
Aviation put the Boeing 737 aircraft under quote-unquote
“enhanced surveillance.” According to news agency Press Trust of India, authorities stated:
“Flight safety is serious business and we are closely studying the situation. In the interim,
we are focused on enhanced surveillance of our 737 fleets.
We are deploying teams to monitor flight procedures, air worthiness and operations.”
The Simple Flying team would like to express their sympathy to anybody affected by the crash.