No Survivors! Flight MU5735 goes down on flight to Guangzhou

On Monday, March 21, 2022, a China Eastern Airlines jetliner flight MU5735 crashed in the southern region of China. The domestic flight was en route to Guangzhou from Kunming and had 123 passengers and 9 crew members on board.

The Jetliner was at proper altitude and when it began its slow descent to prepare for landing, it lost control and crashed into the mountains in Guangxi. Upon the arrival of emergency services, it was stated to the media that there were no signs of any survivors.

“I feel less safe and more paranoid, mostly because I live in Guangzhou and the plane crashed on its way here,” said Betty R., a junior at AISG.

It was also reported to the media that there were no foreigners on flight MU5735. The crash caused a fire in the mountains which made it difficult to access the crash site and greatly slowed the recovery efforts of emergency services.

The site of the crash was roughly 241 kilometers away from the final destination. This tells the investigators that the jetliner had traveled 804 kilometers before crashing.

Within the span of three minutes, the jetliner’s altitude dropped from 8,869 meters to 1,333.5 meters. This was seen in the tracking data that was retrieved after the crash.

The data shows the aircraft cruising at its normal altitude then suddenly dropping into a deep dive. There was a brief moment when the Boeing 737 climbed 304 meters before the data abruptly ends.

“Well, I am not going to stop flying just because of the crash. Sure I would have a little fear but not much,” said Ayan D., a junior at AISG.

China Eastern has publicly stated that the crash is under investigation and that it was far too early in the investigation to come to a conclusion as to how the jetliner crashed. Crashes involving Boeing 737 typically involve multiple factors.

The investigators have a plan to go over every part of the wreckage and records of the flight to find what could have caused the sudden vertical plunge that caused a high-speed collision with the mountain.

Boeing 737 was delivered to China Eastern in June 2015. This twin-engine Boeing 737 is one of the most common and widely used passenger jets worldwide.

China Eastern Airlines has reached out to the families of the passengers and the crew, and they have stated to the media that they deeply mourned the passengers and crew.