Here's your 10-point cheatsheet to this big story:
The jet was a 6-year-old Boeing 737-800NG aircraft and was carrying 132 people. It had 123 passengers and nine crew on board. The People's Daily quoted a provincial firefighting department official as saying there was no sign of life among the scattered debris.
Following the crash, China Eastern Airlines has grounded all of its Boeing 737-800 flights.
Xi Jinping "shocked" over China jet crash, has ordered a probe, news agency AFP reported, quoting state media. There was no immediate word on the cause of the crash.
The plane crashed in the rural countryside near Wuzhou city, Guangxi region and "caused a mountain fire", Chinese state media CCTV said. 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.
The aircraft involved wasn't a new-generation Boeing Max jet, the model involved in previous fatal crashes. The re-engined Max narrow-body was grounded in March 2019 in the wake of fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. That particular make of plane still hasn't returned to commercial service in China.
The China Eastern flight MU5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou departed at 1.11 pm local time (0511 GMT), FlightRadar24 data showed.
The flight-tracking ended at 2.22 pm local time (0622 GMT) at an altitude of 3225 feet with a speed of 376 knots. It had been due to land in Guangzhou, on the east coast, at 3:05 p.m. (0705 GMT).
The website of China Eastern Airlines was later presented in black and white, which airlines do in response to a crash as a sign of respect for the assumed victims.
Shares of Boeing fell 6.8% to $179.97 in pre-market U.S. trading. Stock in Shanghai-based China Eastern fell as much as 6.4% in late trading in Hong Kong.
The safety record of China's airline industry has been among the best in the world over the past decade. According to Aviation Safety Network, China's last fatal jet accident was in 2010, when 44 of 96 people on board were killed when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed on approach to Yichun airport in low visibility.
"UFOs Dancing": Boeing Pilot Captures Breathtaking Footage Of Mysterious Objects In Sky What Happens When Astronauts Get Stuck in Space? Lessons from Recent ISS Mission Sunita Williams’ Mission to Space May Extend to February 2025 Due to Starliner Issues Vandalism At Kolkata Hospital Where Doctor Was Raped, Tear Gas Fired 150 mg Semen In Kolkata Doctor's Body, Suspect Gang-Rape: Parents To Court 2 French Rafale Jets Collide Mid-Air, Instructor, Pilot Missing Professor 'Digitally Arrested' For 12 Days By Scammers, Loses Rs 12 Lakh Independence Day 2024 Live Updates: PM Modi To Address Nation From Red Fort PM Modi To Address Nation From Red Fort On 78th Independence Day Today Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.