Agencies | Beijing                  

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

No survivors have been found as rescuers on Tuesday searched the scattered wreckage of a China Eastern plane carrying 132 people that crashed a day earlier on a wooded mountainside in China’s worst air disaster in more than a decade."Wreckage of the plane was found at the scene, but up until now, none of those aboard the plane with whom contact was lost have been found," state broadcaster CCTV said, more than 20 hours after the Monday afternoon crash, according to The AP.

The Boeing 737-800 crashed near the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region while flying from Kunming in the southwestern province of Yunnan to the industrial center of Guangzhou along the east coast. It ignited a fire big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images.
The crash created a deep pit in the mountainside, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing rescuers. The report said drones and a manual search would be used to try to find the black boxes, which hold the flight data and cockpit voice recorders essential to crash investigations.
 
A base of operations was set up near the crash site with rescue vehicles, ambulances, and an emergency power supply truck parked in the narrow space. Soldiers in camouflage joined helmeted rescue workers in orange jumpsuits in combing the charred crash site and surrounding heavily dense vegetation.The steepness of the slope made positioning of heavy equipment difficult, although with few large pieces of the aircraft remaining, there appeared little need for their use.The plane was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said. It was about an hour into the flight, and nearing the point at which it would begin descending into Guangzhou, when it pitched downward.
 
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for an "all-out" rescue effort, as well as an inquiry into the incident and the total safety of public aviation.At a hotel near the Kunming airport where the plane took off, about a dozen people, some in jackets identifying them as members of China’s aviation agency, huddled around tables and read documents. Police and security guards at an airline office near the airport ordered journalists to leave.Family members of those on board began arriving at Guangzhou International Airport, where they were brought to a welcome facility supervised by personnel wearing full protective gear to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
 
At least five hotels with more than 700 rooms have been requisitioned for family members, the reports said.The crash site lies in Guangxi, a semi tropical region of mountains and rivers known for some of China's most stunning landscapes, and is only accessible by foot or motorcycle. More than 100 737-800s in China Eastern’s fleet are being grounded, China’s Transport Ministry said. With no word on when they could fly again, the grounding could potentially further disrupt domestic air travel, which is already being curtailed as China deals with its largest coronavirus outbreak since the initial peak in early 2020.
 
Aviation experts said it is unusual to ground an entire fleet of planes unless there is evidence of a problem with the model. China has more 737-800s than any other country, nearly 1,200 and if identical planes on other Chinese airlines are grounded."This could have a significant impact on domestic travel," said aviation consultant IBA.Boeing 737-800s have been flying since 1998, and Boeing has sold more than 5,100 of them. According to statistics provided by the Aviation Safety Network, an arm of the Flight Safety Foundation, they were involved in 22 incidents that damaged the planes beyond repair and killed 612 people.
 
"There are thousands of them around the world. It certainly had an excellent safety record," the foundation’s president, Hassan Shahidi, said of the 737-800.China Eastern’s last fatal crash was in November 2004, when a bombardier CRJ-200 plunged into a frozen lake just after takeoff from the Inner Mongolian city of Baotou, killing 53 people on board and two on the ground. Regulators blamed ice that had collected on the wings.
 
The CAAC and China Eastern both sent officials to the crash site. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said a senior investigator was chosen to help, and the U.S. The Federal Aviation Administration, which certified the 737-800 in the 1990s, said it was ready to help if asked.The Chicago-based Boeing Co. said its experts were prepared to assist investigators, and the NTSB said engine maker CFM, a joint venture between General Electric and France’s Safran, would provide technical help on engine issues.
 
Plane crash investigations are usually led by officials in the country where the crash occurred, but they typically include the manufacturer and an investigator or regulator in the manufacturer’s home country.Headquartered in Shanghai, China Eastern is one of the country’s top three airlines, serving 248 domestic and foreign destinations.The twin-engine, single-aisle Boeing 737 in various versions has been flying for more than 50 years and is one of the world’s most popular planes for short- and medium-haul flights.
 
The 737 Max, a later version, was grounded for about 20 months after two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people. China in December became the last major market to clear the Max for return to service, although Chinese airlines have not yet resumed flying the Max. The deadliest crash involving a Boeing 737-800 came in January 2020, when Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard accidentally shot down a Ukraine International Airlines flight, killing 176 people.