Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, said Monday that Islamabad shares Beijing’s pain after the accident of a China Eastern passenger flight that killed 132 people in southern China
After losing touch with air traffic control and plummeting thousands of meters in less than three minutes, the aircraft crashed, igniting a massive fire.
Boeing 737-800 aircraft from Kunming to Guangzhou “lost airborne communication above Wuzhou” in Guangxi on Monday afternoon, according to China’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC).
According to aviation officials, the plane had 123 passengers and nine staff members on board.
After Chinese President Xi Jinping said he was “shocked” and demanded an urgent inquiry into the cause of the accident, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “deeply grieved” by the terrible loss of life in a passenger jet crash in China.
Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, expressed his “deepest condolences and sympathy” to the families of the victims.
China Eastern stated the disaster had resulted in fatalities, but did not provide information on the number of people killed or information on whether any passengers had been saved.
Statement: “The firm extends its deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones of those who perished in the jet disaster,” the airline stated.
According to the statement, the reason of the collision is “still being investigated.”
According to official media, hundreds of firemen were sent to Teng county near Wuzhou to assist with the rescue mission.
CCTV reports that Xi urged for “all measures” to be made to discover the “cause of the disaster” as quickly as feasible.
We are outraged by the China Eastern MU5735 tragedy, he added, and we demand “the total safety of the sector and the lives of the people”.
As night struck, nothing was known about the passengers’ identities or conditions.
As a result of the country’s rapid economic development and the proliferation of new airports and airlines, China has amassed an excellent safety record in recent years.
Although the ultimate death toll was never established, at least 42 of the 92 persons on board were killed when a Henan Airlines plane crashed in Heilongjiang province in 2010. There were no civilian deaths in the latest Chinese commercial passenger plane tragedy.
China Northwest Airlines crashed in 1994, killing all 160 people on board, making it the worst Chinese commercial plane catastrophe.
