Authorities in China say a passenger plane crashed southwest of the southern city of Wuzhou. China Eastern, the airline involved, appears to have confirmed the news.
This is what we know so far about tragedy.
What is known about the flight?
China Eastern Flight MU5735 usually departs from the city of Kunming at 1.11 am local time for the two-hour, 665-mile journey to Guangzhou. Reports say 123 passengers and nine crew were on board.
The latest data transmitted by the aircraft, as recorded by the tracking service Flightradar24, was at 2.22pm. It shows that the plane loses altitude of almost 31,000 feet per minute, corresponding to a vertical component of 340mph.
What is known about the aircraft in question?
The Boeing 737-800, with registration number B-1791, was shipped by aircraft manufacturer New to China Eastern in June 2015. The aircraft type is the predecessor of the Boeing 737 Max.
Earlier on Monday, the plane had flown from Kunming to Chongqing and back without incident. It was planned to land in Guangzhou at 15.05 and from there return to Kunming at 16.25.
China Eastern flies nearly 200 Boeing 737s, most of them the smaller -700 version.
What is the airline’s safety record?
China Eastern last had a fatal crash in 2004. The Shanghai-based airline was founded in 1988. In her first 16 years, she was involved in a series of tragedies.
In 1989, a Soviet-made Antonov 24 crashed shortly after takeoff from Shanghai on a domestic flight to Nanchang, China, after losing true engine power. All but six of the 40 passengers and crew were killed.
In 1993, the crew of a McDonnell-Douglas MD11, flying from Shanghai to Los Angeles, accidentally dropped the top candidates on the wings while the plane was on the cruise.
AirSafe.com states: “While trying to correct the initial pitching of the aircraft, the crew put the aircraft through a few more oscillations.
“The crew regained control of the aircraft and was diverted to a U.S. Air Force base in Shemya, Alaska. All 20 crew members survived, but two of the 235 passengers were killed during these maneuvers.
Later that year, an MD82 crossed the runway in Fuzhou in a rainstorm. Two of the 71 passengers died.
The worst accident happened in November 2004, when a Bombardier CRJ-200 regional jet crashed shortly after the launch of Baotou on a flight to Beijing. All 47 passengers and six crew died. An investigation revealed that the ground staff had not been able to remove the wings, which had caused a loss of lift.
What is the history of the aircraft type?
More Boeing 737 aircraft were sold than any other type. The twin-engine aircraft first flew on 9 April 1967 and came into service in February 1968.
The aircraft involved in this incident was one of the third generation of the Boeing 737. Production of this series began in 1997, with the last two aircraft being delivered in January 2020 to China Eastern.
The Boeing 737-800 is flown worldwide, and is the main aircraft type used by Jet2 and Ryanair. The latter is the safest airline in the world, measured by the number of passengers flown without fatal accident.
The fourth iteration of the Boeing 737 is the Max, which was first flown commercially in 2017. The incorrect design of an anti-stall system in the 737 Max resulted in the loss of two 737-Max aircraft: Lion Air Flight 610 to Indonesia in 2018, which cost 189 lives, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2019, with 157 Deaths.
Was the 737 involved in many other fatal accidents?
Yes, as would be predicted from the number of aircraft manufactured. The aviation safety website AirSafe.com lists 83 previous “fatal events” with the Boeing 737.
The most recent was a crash with a Boeing 737-500 – the second generation of the aircraft – in January 2021. Sixty-two people lost their lives when the Sriwijaya Air Flight SJ182 crashed shortly after takeoff from the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
With many thousands of Boeing 737s in service at normal times, it is statistically foreseeable that a significant number of the very rare aircraft accidents involving the jet.
Boeing itself publishes data (up to 2019) that can be analyzed to calculate the number of flights for each fatal accident.
- The 100/200 series flew 1.1 million flights for every fatal accident
- The “Classic 737”, made 4 million departures per fatal accident.
- “New Generation” Boeing 737s, including the -800, operated 12.5 million flights for each fatal event.
- The Boeing 737 Max is the outlier: with two fatal accidents involving a brand new type of aircraft, the rate is one per 140,000 departures.
How do these accident rates compare with the corresponding Airbus?
In numbers until the end of 2019, the Airbus A320 series (the direct competitor to the 737) has an almost identical fatal accident rate for the “New Generation” series of the Boeing Jet: one to 12.5 million.
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