A Boeing (BA) 737 airplane operated by China Eastern Airlines has crashed with 132 people onboard, according to China’s aviation authority.
Contact was lost with the flight over Wuzhou, in the Guangxi region of China, the authority said. It was scheduled to fly from Kunming to Guangzhou in the southeast of the country. The number of casualties is unknown.
China Eastern Airlines confirmed the crash and the number of people on board via a statement on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter (TWTR). The airline said it is sending workers to the site of the crash and has opened a hotline for family members.
The last serious passenger plane crash in China was in 2010, when 42 people died on a Henan Airlines Embraer E-190 flight.
Boeing shares were down over 8% in premarket trading on news of the crash. The stock closed trading last Friday (March 18) at $192.83 U.S., down 7% year to date.
The crash comes as Boeing has been trying to repair its reputation after a number of major incidents in recent years.
The company’s 737 Max passenger aircraft was grounded worldwide between March 2019 and December 2020 after manufacturing faults were found to have caused two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Indonesia’s Lion Air Flight 610 crashed on October 29, 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 came down on March 10, 2019, killing a combined 346 people.
Boeing reported its third annual loss in a row in January, disclosing $5.5 billion U.S. in costs tied to manufacturing flaws, which have hindered deliveries of the company’s 787 Dreamliner program.
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