Rescue teams scoured the slopes of heavily forested mountains in southern China on Tuesday looking for victims and flight recorders of a China Eastern Airlines passenger plane that crashed on Monday with 132 people on board.
Parts of the Boeing 737-800 were scattered among charred trees. This was the first commercial airliner accident in China since 2010.
Remains of documents and wallets were also seen, according to state media.
Flight MU5735 was traveling to the port city of Guangzhou from Kunming, capital of southwest Yunnan province, when it suffered an altitude drop and crashed into the Guangxi Mountains less than an hour before landing.
Chinese media released brief footage of a camera on the dashboard of a vehicle that appeared to show a jet crashing to the ground at an angle of about 35 degrees from the vertical. Reuters could not immediately verify the footage.
A resident near the crash site who refused to give his first name and identified himself only as Si, 64, reports that he heard a pop at the time of the crash.
“It was like thunder,” he said. State media, which described the situation as “ominous”, said the possibility that everyone on board had died cannot be ruled out. On Monday, Chinese state media CCTV reported that Rescue teams found no signs of survivors..
The crash site is surrounded by mountains on three sides, according to state media, with only a small path leading to the site.
The forecast was for rain in the region this week. Excavators were clearing their way to the site on Tuesday, according to images shown on state television.
Earlier, video footage from the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, showed search and rescue teams and paramilitary forces scaling tree-covered hills and placing markers where the wreckage was found.
Police set up a checkpoint in the village of Lu, on arrival at the place where the plane crashed, and prevented journalists from entering. Several people gathered near the crash site on Tuesday for a small Buddhist ceremony.
An investigative team sent by the State Council will give details of the search and rescue effort and the search for the flight recorders at a press conference on Tuesday night, state TV reported.
The last commercial plane to crash in China happened in 2010 – it was an Embraer E-190 aircraft from Henan Airlines. In the accident, 44 of the 96 people on board died.
Source: CNN Brasil
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