A China Eastern passenger jet carrying 132 people crashed in southern China today, aviation authorities said, with state media reporting it led to a fire on a mountain.
The Boeing 737 flight from Kunming city to the southern hub of Guangzhou "lost airborne contact over Wuzhou" city in the Guangxi region, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in an online announcement.
China plane crash: State broadcaster CCTV reported that the plane crashed in Teng county near Wuzhou and "caused a mountain fire", citing the provincial emergency management bureau.
China plane crash: One villager told a local news site that the plane involved in the crash had "completely fallen apart" and he had seen nearby forest areas destroyed by a fire caused when the plane crashed onto the mountainside.
Flight tracker FlightRadar24 showed no more data for flight MU5735 after 2:22 pm local time, when it had reached Wuzhou. It showed that the plane had sharply dropped from an altitude of 29,100 feet to 3,225 feet in the span of three minutes, before flight information stopped.
With inputs from AFP
