Rescuers have not found any survivors at the crash site of a China Eastern Airlines wreck, increasing fears that the plane’s 132 passengers have died.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Boeing Co. 737-800 flying from the southwestern city of Kunming to the southern metropolis of Guangzhou was at cruising altitude on Monday before nosediving at 2:20 p.m. local time, according to flight-tracking data, a trajectory some air safety experts said was unusual. The plane was transporting nine crew members and 123 passengers.
The plane wreckage was strewn across a forested mountainous region in Guangxi, which makes the search for the aircraft’s black box more difficult, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing rescuers. Investigators try to find and analyze the plane’s flight-data recorder and cockpit voice recorder to help gain insight into a flight’s final moments, though crash investigations often take months or years.
The crash has raised concerns about Boeing, which has recently weathered several setbacks. In 2018 and 2019, two of the company’s Max models crashed, killing 346 people. The Chicago-based manufacturer was also adversely impacted by pandemic, when air travel plummeted.
The New York Times reports:
Thousands of 737-800 NG planes have safely traversed the globe in recent decades, and many industry analysts and experts were disinclined to conclude that Monday’s crash indicated any fundamental design flaw. But Boeing’s stock fell 3.6 percent nonetheless. Shares of China Eastern ended 6.5 percent lower in trading in Hong Kong.
An icon of the aviation age, Boeing is the largest manufacturing exporter in the United States, a blue chip stock and a major employer. It is also one of the federal government’s biggest contractors.
“Air travel is the safest form of transport. But when we do suffer incidents or accidents, we don’t see anything like what we have seen in China over the last 24 hours,” Alex Macheras, an independent aviation analyst, told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Tuesday.
“This nosedive was simply unprecedented, especially from cruising altitude. We’re talking about the safest phase of the flight. That’s why those answers are going to be needed as soon as possible to determine,” he added.
