Enlarge image
Ambulance near the scene of the accident in southern China
Photo: AFP
According to media reports, there have been no signs of survivors in China after the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800.
There were 132 people on board.
The Boeing of the Chinese airline China Eastern had crashed near the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region in the south of the country.
The accident site is in the mountains;
the crash triggered a forest fire there, which was extinguished shortly thereafter.
According to media reports, rescue workers and villagers said the aircraft on flight MU5735 was "completely destroyed".
She was on her way from Kunming to Guangzhou.
The cause of the crash is unclear.
According to online weather data, it was partly cloudy in Wuzhou at the time of the crash, but visibility was good.
"We can confirm that the plane crashed," China Eastern Airlines said in a statement.
Media, citing an official source, said the plane broke apart and started the fire.
The plane crashed early Monday morning German time.
It took off from Kunming at 1:11 p.m. local time (6:11 a.m. German time), according to the Flightradar24 website, which can track flights in real time.
About an hour later, the plane could no longer be tracked.
Six year old machine
According to Flightradar24, the machine was flying at a height of almost one kilometer at a speed of almost 700 km/h.
Shortly before, the plane had rapidly lost speed and altitude, according to the website.
According to Flightradar24, the plane should have landed in Guangzhou at 3:05 p.m. local time and is said to have been six years old.
According to the aviation data provider OAG, China Eastern is the market leader in China and number six in the industry worldwide.
China is known for its high standards in aviation.
Most recently, a regional jet crashed in 2010, killing 44 of the 96 people.
The Boeing 737-800 is also one of the machines that are considered safe.
It is the forerunner of the crashed 737 MAX, which was grounded for years after two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
President Xi Jinping called on investigators to clarify the cause of the crash as soon as possible and to ensure "absolute" safety in aviation, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
A Boeing spokesman said they were working to "gather more information."
Investigators may now try to recover the plane's two black boxes - the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder - in order to clarify the crash.
has/apr/dpa/Reuters
