“The Ministry of Emergency Situations and other relevant departments sent a working group and rescue forces to the scene. Rescue work, elimination of consequences and investigation of the causes of the accident are currently being carried out at the scene, ”the agency notes.
Ch-aviation reports that the crashed plane was flying from Kunming Changshui Airport in Yunnan province to Guangzhou, with 123 passengers and nine crew members on board. It is known that during the flight, for unknown reasons, the aircraft began to decline sharply from a height of about nine kilometers. It crashed in Teng County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and a fire broke out at the crash site in a mountainous area.
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The Civil Aviation Authority of China has not yet issued a recommendation to stop flying this type of aircraft. In total, more than 1,000 Boeing 737-800s can be operated in China.
In October 2018 and March 2019, two plane crashes occurred with the participation of the new Boeing 737 MAX model: in Indonesia and Ethiopia. A total of 346 people were killed in the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes. After that, China in one of the first banned using the Boeing 737 MAX.
Both incidents were associated with a malfunction of the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), which automatically corrects the position of the aircraft in the air. MAX flights have been suspended worldwide, including Russia.
After the news of the China Eastern plane crash, Boeing shares in pre-trading on the New York Stock Exchange fell in price by 7%.