Chinese plane crashes with 132 on board, no sign of survivors

A China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 with 132 people on board crashed in mountains in southern China on a domestic flight on Monday after a sudden descent from cruising altitude. Media said there were no signs of survivors.   

The airline said it deeply mourned the passengers and crew, without specifying how many people had been killed. The plane was en route from the southwestern city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, bordering Hong Kong, when it crashed Reuters reported. China Eastern said the cause of the crash, in which the plane descended at 31,000 feet a minute according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, was under investigation.   The aircraft, with 123 passengers and 9 crew on board, lost contact over the city of Wuzhou, China’s Civil Aviation Administration of China and the airline said.  The airline also added it had provided a hotline for relatives of those on board and sent a working group to the site. There were no foreigners on the flight, Chinese state television reported   

Media cited a rescue official as saying the plane had disintegrated and caused a fire destroying bamboo trees.State media showed a piece of the plane on a scarred, earthen hillside. There was no sign of a fire or personal belongings. Online weather data showed partly cloudy conditions with good visibility in Wuzhou at the time of the crash.