At 400 mph, Boeing 737 with 132 people on board nosedives straight into mountain

GUANGXI: This is the terrifying moment of a commercial jet with 132 people nosedives straight into a mountain while travelling at 400 mph.

The Boeing 737 plummets to the ground after descending from 29,100 feet in a minute and a half, according to terrifying footage.

China Eastern Airlines passenger jet crashed near Guangxi, China, on Monday, according to official media.

The passenger jet was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou with 9 crew members and 123 passengers on board.

According to CCTV, the accident involving the China Eastern 737 took place near Wuzhou in Teng county.

It stated that rescuers had been dispatched and that the number of dead and injured had not yet been determined.

The incident, according to official media, resulted in ablaze.

Large fragments of the plane are seen dispersed on the ground in harrowing photographs, with a blaze seen in the background.

The Aviation Safety Network tweeted: “We are following multiple unconfirmed reports about a possible accident involving China Eastern Airlines flight #MU5735 a Boeing 737-89P (B-1791) en route from Kunming to Guangzhou, China.”

China’s Civil Aviation Administration of China said in a statement: “The CAAC has activated the emergency mechanism and sent a working group to the scene.”

According to FlightRadar24 data, the China Eastern flight took off at 1:11 p.m. (0511 GMT) and was scheduled to land at 3:05 p.m. (0705 GMT).

At 2:22 p.m. (0622 GMT), the aeroplane was tracked at an altitude of 30,000 feet and a speed of 376 knots.

Just southwest of Wuzhou, China, the plane ceased transmitting data.

After hearing a huge explosion, a villager named Liu drove a motorbike to the area, according to the state-run China News Service.

He claimed to have seen debris on the ground, including an aeroplane wing and clothes bits dangling from trees.

China Eastern Airlines’ website was later rendered in black and white, as is customary in the aftermath of a tragedy as a show of respect for the presumed fatalities.

According to official media, Chinese President Xi Jinping described the disaster as “shocking” and demanded an inquiry.

“We are shocked to learn of the China Eastern MU5735 accident,” he said according to broadcaster CCTV, while he also called for “all efforts” towards the rescue and to find out the “cause of the accident as soon as possible”.

The plane had been flying for nearly six years when it was delivered to China Eastern from Boeing in June 2015.

The 737-800 type that crashed on Monday has a strong safety record and is the forerunner to the 737 MAX, which has been grounded in China for more than three years following tragic crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019.

After a 20-month safety prohibition was removed following the crashes, the Boeing 737 Max returned to commercial service in 2020.

Over the last decade, China’s airline industry has had one of the best safety records in the world.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, China’s most recent fatal jet accident occurred in 2010, when a Henan Airlines Embraer E-190 regional plane crashed on approach to Yichun airport in bad visibility, killing 44 of the 96 passengers on board.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, a China Northwest Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 travelling from Xian to Guangzhou was destroyed in an accident after takeoff in 1994, killing all 160 people on board and ranking as China’s worst-ever flight catastrophe.

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