No survivors found in China Eastern plane crash

No survivors were found on Tuesday after China Eastern crashed carrying 132 people during 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 18 hours after the Monday afternoon crash.

The Boeing 737 crashed in a mountainous area in southern China causing mountain fire, and there are fears no one survived. pic.twitter.com/4tOWCBV7Lk

— Alℹ (@AlexKenya_) March 21, 2022

Near the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region, the Boeing 737-800 crashed while flying from Kunming in the southwestern province Yunnan to the industrial center of Guangzhou along the east coast. It ignited a fire big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images. 

A deep pit was created by the crash 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 investigators. 

Soldiers in camouflage joined helmeted rescue workers in orange jumpsuits in combing the charred crash site and surrounding heavily dense vegetation. 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. 

China's airline industry 

China Eastern, one of the four major carriers in China, is state-owned like Air China, China Southern Airlines, and HNA Group. The airline is headquartered at Shanghai's Pudong International Airport, and its fleet of 749 aircraft includes 291 from the Boeing 737 series, according to its mid-2021 interim report. 

The carrier holds 79,913 employees, mostly in China. It carried 44.3 million passengers in the first half of 2021. 

Due to the global pandemic, carriers have suffered heavy financial losses with a "zero tolerance" strategy that bars most foreign visitors from China and has disrupted travel by suspending access temporarily to major cities. 

Within China, passenger numbers exceeded the United States in 2020 for the first time, according to Boeing Co. That was partly because China reopened to domestic travel quickly after the initial coronavirus outbreak. Boeing forecasts 5.4% annual traffic growth and says China should account for one-sixth of future added airline capacity.