Just in: Airplane carrying 132 passengers crashes in China

A China Eastern Airlines passenger plane carrying 132 people has crashed in southwest China, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The Boeing 737 plane crashed in the countryside near Wuzhou city in the Guangxi region. It “caused a mountain fire”, CCTV said, adding that rescue teams were dispatched to the scene.

There was no word on the cause of the crash of the plane, which flight-tracking website Flightradar24 identified as a 6-year-old 737-800 aircraft.

Local media reported that China Eastern flight MU5735 had not arrived at its scheduled destination in Guangzhou after it took off from the city of Kunming shortly after 1:00pm (0500 GMT) on Monday, citing airport staff.

The flight tracking ended at 2:22pm (0622 GMT) an altitude of 3225 feet with a speed of 376 knots.

It had been due to land at 3:05pm (0705 GMT).

Al Jazeera reports that this is the biggest aviation incident China has had in years.

“China’s civil aviation authority say there were 132 people on board including the crew,” Yu said, speaking from Beijing.

“It seems like there is a wildfire caused by the plane coming down [in Quangxi], and you can get a sense of how remote this area is,” she continued.

“Because of how difficult this terrain is you can see that it is not going to be easy to get rescue teams there very quickly.”

China Eastern is one of China’s three major air carriers, operating scores of domestic and international routes serving 248 destinations.

The safety record of the country’s airline industry has been among the best in the world over the past decade.

The twin-engine, single-aisle Boeing 737 is one of the world’s most popular planes for short and medium-haul flights.

The 737 Max version was grounded worldwide after two fatal crashes. China’s aviation regulator cleared that plane to return to service late last year, making the country the last major market to do so.

According to Aviation Safety Network, China’s last fatal jet accident was in 2010, when 44 of 96 people on board were killed when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed on approach to Yichun airport in low visibility.