All 132 people on board the Boeing 737-800 of the Chinese airline China Eastern Airlines that crashed on Monday were killed. The Chinese aviation authority has officially confirmed this. It concerns 123 passengers and 9 crew members. Earlier in the day it was announced that 120 victims have been identified.
The plane, en route from Kunming (Yunnan Province) to Guangzhou (Guangdong Province), crashed in a remote, hilly area near Wuzhou City in Guangxi Region. The aircraft dove rapidly from a height of more than eight kilometers. For a moment the aircraft seemed to come out of the dive, but afterwards it crashed anyway.
Debris is widespread in the area. More than 24,000 pieces of debris have been found in recent days, the Chinese aviation authority said. One of the two black boxes – containing the voice recordings from the cockpit – has also been found. The second black box (with the flight data) is still being sought. A number of debris was examined for traces of explosives, but nothing was found.
After the official confirmation that there are no survivors, airline China Eastern Airlines expressed its condolences to the bereaved on Twitter. So did the American aircraft manufacturer Boeing. A Boeing technical team is assisting in the investigation into the crash.
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