Following the crash of the passenger plane with 133 passengers onboard in southwest China on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered a probe into the accident.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said he was ‘shocked’ by the crash of the passenger plane carrying 133 people onboard.
“We are shocked to learn of the China Eastern MU5735 accident,” China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported Xi as saying.
Xi Jinping has also called for “all efforts” for the rescue operations and ascertaining the “cause of the accident as soon as possible”.
Also read: Chinese passenger plane with 133 onboard crashes
The number of casualties is yet not known but the accident site is engulfed with flames. It crashed in the rural countryside near Wuzhou city, Guangxi region.
CCTV reported that the crash “caused a mountain fire”.
Rescue operations have been initiated but no confirmation on survivors or casualties has been announced.
Hours after the plane crash in China, videos of the accident started to flood social media.
In one of the videos, the plane is being seen clearly nose diving straight into the ground.
The Boeing 737-800 flight from Kunming to Guangzhou “lost airborne contact over Wuzhou” in the Guangxi region, informed the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
“This flight has crashed,” the CAAC said.
Hundreds of firefighters were dispatched to the crash site, as nearby villagers rushed to help the rescue effort.
China Eastern said the cause of the crash, in which the plane descended at a final rate of 31,000 feet a minute according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, was under investigation.