On Monday, a China Eastern Airlines passenger jet carrying 132 people crashed in the mountains in the south of China. The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737, which had 123 passengers and nine crew members onboard, tragically crashed in the mountainous region.
According to the People’s Daily, a provincial firefighting department official says that there is no sign of life to be found following the crash.
The plane was en route from the southwestern city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong. China Eastern Airlines stated that the cause of the crash is currently under investigation.
According to Flightradar24, the passenger jet descended at 31,000 feet a minute. The plane began “suddenly descending” while in the cruise phase. State news agency China News Service reported that the plane’s altitude dropped from 8,869 meters (29,098 feet) to 1,333.5 meters (4,375 feet) in the span of three minutes.
The domestic flight lost contact over the city of Wuzhou, China’s Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) according to the airline. The fatal crash comes as a surprise, as the airline’s safety records has been among the best in the world for an entire decade.
In a statement, Boeing said that it was “aware of the initial media reports and working to gather more information.”
Most recently, Chinese President Xi Jinping instructed the country’s emergency services to “organize a search and rescue” operation and “identify the causes of the accident,” state media reported.
Videos posted on social media show the plane falling nose first from the sky and has been widely shared on Chinese social media before being published by state media. Further videos show smoke billowing from the mountains and forests in the southern Guangxi region.
CCTV footage has shown China Eastern grounding its fleet of 737-800 planes after the crash, state media recently reported.