(Last Updated on March 21, 2022 by zimdaily)
CHINA – A Chinese passenger plane with 132 people on board has crashed in a mountainous area of southern China. The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou when it came down in hills in Guangxi province and caught fire.
It is feared there are no survivors, but the number of casualties and reason for the crash are not yet known. Chinese airlines generally have a good safety record: the last major accident took place 12 years ago.
More than 600 emergency responders have arrived at the crash site, state media reported. Firefighters, who reached the scene first, had already extinguished the blaze in the hills caused by the plane crash, CCTV reported.
On Chinese social media footage taken by local villagers has gone viral, showing fire and smoke from the crash, and plane debris on the ground.
Chinese state media have shared those videos.
Air safety and aviation standards in China have improved vastly in recent decades following a series of accidents in the 1990s. Accidents such as this one are very rare, reports the BBC’s Robin Brant in Shanghai.
The country’s last major plane accident was in August 2010, when a flight from Harbin crashed in north-east Yichun during foggy weather, killing 42 people.
[BBC]