"The cause of the plane crash is still under investigation,” the airline said in a statement, CNN reported. "The company expresses its sorrowful condolences to the passengers and crew members who died in this plane crash.”
A Chinese Easter Airlines Boeing 737-800 passenger jet carrying 132 people on board crashed into a remote mountainous region in southern China on Monday, with no sign of survivors, Reuters reported.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in a statement the Boeing 737 was en route from the southwestern city of Kunming to the capital of Yunnan province Guangzhou when it lost contact over the city of Wuzhou. Onboard were 123 passengers and nine crew members, CNN reported.
The plane went down in a heavily forested area, which ignited a blaze big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images. Villagers were first to arrive at the scene, followed by hundreds of rescue workers, the Associated Press reported.
FlightRadar24 data shows the flight left Kunming at 1:11 p.m. and had been due to land in Guangzhou at 3:05 p.m., Reuters reported.
Chinese government officials and state media reported on Monday that the plane, flight number MU5735, had lost contact with emergency services before “suddenly descending” around 2:19 p.m., CNN reported.
The Guangxi Emergency Management Department said in a statement that “the aircraft lost contact at 2:15 p.m. and rescue teams are on the way to ground zero, and rescue work is being laid out in order,” the news outlet 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 cause of the plane crash is still under investigation,” the airline said in a statement, CNN reported. "The company expresses its sorrowful condolences to the passengers and crew members who died in this plane crash.”
Chinese state television reported that an emergency assistance line had been created for relatives of those on board. They also confirmed that there were no foreigners on the flight, Reuters reported.
Chinese President Xi Jinping instructed the country's emergency services to "organize a search and rescue" operation and "identify the causes of the accident," state media reported, CNN reported.
An eyewitness described seeing a plane "falling directly from the sky in front of him around 2 p.m,” according to the state media outlet Beijing Youth Daily, Reuters reported.
"The plane fell vertically from the sky. Although I was very far away, I could still see that it was a plane. The plane did not smoke during the fall. The fire started after it fell into the mountain, followed by a lot of smoke," the eyewitness said.
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