This was the route of the crashed plane in China 1:50
(CNN) --
No survivors of the China Eastern Airlines plane crash have been found as search efforts entered their second day Tuesday, according to Chinese state media.
In China's worst air disaster in more than a decade, the Boeing 737-800, carrying 132 people, crashed in a remote mountainous region in the south of the country on Monday afternoon while flying from Kunming to Guangzhou.
The cause of the accident is still unclear and authorities have not released any further information about the victims.
According to the state-run China Youth Daily, investigators at the scene, facing difficult terrain and bad weather, have not located the plane's so-called black boxes - flight data and cockpit voice recorders - that could hold clues. crucial information about how the disaster occurred.
Rescuers head to the site of a plane crash on March 21 in China's Tengxian county.
Photos and videos released by state media show giant plumes of smoke rising over the mountains after the accident.
Search and rescue teams make their way through the thicket, littered with debris and aircraft parts.
Wallets, ID cards and fragments of a phone were among the personal belongings scattered on the ground, China Youth Daily reported.
"Remains of the plane were found at the scene, but none of the missing on board the plane have been found at this time," state broadcaster CCTV said on Tuesday morning, citing rescue teams.
The plane lost contact with air traffic controllers over the city of Wuzhou.
In the minutes before the disaster, it was at a cruising altitude of 29,000 feet (about 8,900 meters), according to flight tracking data from FlightRadar24.
The plane then plummeted so fast that it dropped more than 25,000 feet (7,600 meters) in less than two minutes.
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Security footage from a mining company near the crash site shows what appears to be a plane hurtling into the forest, almost vertical in its rapid fall.
CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity of the video, or that the plane is China Eastern Flight 5735, but the sharp decline is consistent with flight tracking data.
Plane with 132 people on board crashes in southern China 1:34
Witnesses reported seeing an explosion of fire, aircraft parts and clothing tangled in trees, and swathes of forest on fire.
An item recovered from the crash site, a handwritten note describing the meaning of traditional jade jewelry, was photographed and widely shared online.
The jewels signify "full life, peaceful career, family happiness, inner peace... describing people's life expectancies," the note said, prompting mourning messages on Chinese social media.
On Monday night, relatives of the passengers gathered at Guangzhou airport, awaiting news of their loved ones as authorities launched an investigation into the accident.
Due to the apparent speed of the accident, there is little chance that anyone on board will survive or that there will be clear remains to identify, said David Soucie, a former safety inspector for the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Rescuers set up lighting equipment at the site of a plane crash on March 21 in China's Tengxian county.
Search and investigation operation
Chinese President Xi Jinping issued an unusual statement just hours after the accident, ordering the country's emergency services to mount a search and rescue operation and identify the cause of the accident.
"The fact that the president has given such a pronounced and quick response to this tells me that they are taking it very, very seriously," Soucie said.
After several plane crashes in the 1990s and 2000s, China made a series of extensive safety improvements.
Monday's disaster is the country's first fatal commercial plane crash since the Henan Airlines disaster in 2010, which killed 44 of the 96 people on board.
Hundreds of rescuers were dispatched to the China Eastern crash site on Monday and continued their work overnight.
Footage showed police and emergency workers making their way through mountain trails in the dark, wielding flashlights.
Other teams, including medical personnel and firefighters, are seen working under tents, preparing supplies and surveillance drones.
But they face numerous challenges.
The crash site is flanked by mountains on three sides, with only a narrow road and no electricity in the area, according to state media.
The heavy rescue team was unable to reach the scene on Monday, with videos showing search teams climbing uphill through the trees.
A cold front is also expected to arrive soon, which could bring heavy rain in the coming days, according to the Guangxi Meteorological Bureau.
It's still unclear what caused the plane to start going down, and we won't know more until authorities can recover and analyze the plane's cockpit voice recorder, black box and other essential data, said Soucie, a former U.S. inspector. FAA.
The investigation will be carried out by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), with the assistance of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Boeing, the engine manufacturer, CFM, and the FAA as well. will participate in the research.
This arrangement is standard for aviation incidents involving a US-designed aircraft that occur abroad.
Gathering all the information and evidence in an investigation into a modern airliner crash could take months or more.
The final report of the Henan Airlines accident in 2010 was not published until almost two years later.
Meanwhile, China Eastern Airlines is contacting all the families of the victims, according to CCTV.
Wuzhou authorities dispatched dozens of buses and taxis to pick up the relatives.
Relatives of passengers on China Eastern flight MU5375 in the waiting area of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport on March 22.
"That's the hardest part of being an accident investigator, dealing with families," Soucie said.
“What the families want right now is to get whatever remains they can from the crash victims.
In this case, there won't be much they can get."
problems with boeing
Although Boeing's 737 has faced extraordinarily high-profile safety issues for the past three years, the plane that crashed Monday was a different version of the plane than the 737 Max, whose accidents shook Boeing to the core.
The China Eastern Airlines plane was a Boeing 737-800, the most popular version of Boeing's jets currently in service and the workhorse of many airline fleets.
The plane that crashed on Monday had been in service since 2015.
The airline will ground all of its Boeing 737-800 planes, CCTV reported.
But other Chinese airlines will continue to operate the same type of aircraft, according to state media.
The 737-800 is part of a class of Boeing aircraft known as the 737-NG, which stands for "Next Generation."
These planes have had safety issues cited by US regulators, though none of them went to the level of requiring planes to be grounded.
Rescuers at the crash site on March 21.
Boeing has sold more than 7,000 737-NG planes worldwide and, as of Monday, the model had only suffered a dozen fatal accidents in its 25-year history.
Boeing came under international scrutiny after its 737 Max, which succeeded the 737-800, suffered two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. Those crashes were shown to be caused by a design flaw in a new stabilization system, which the 737-800 does not have.
Boeing China Eastern Airlines