China Eastern sets up the type of Boeing plane that crashed in the air
Bloomberg – China Eastern Airlines Corp. resumed flights using the same type of aircraft that recently crashed in southern China, a sign the airline is working to get the entire fleet back in the air.
A 737-800 jet flew from Kunming to Chengdu on Sunday, according to flightradar24.com. Other planes of the same model made by Boeing Co. were used in what appeared to be test flights, including near the financial center of Shanghai.
China Eastern is gradually restarting operations of its 737-800 fleet after conducting checks over the past two weeks, China News Service reported, citing company officials it did not identify.
The mystery of the China Eastern plane crash grows and evidence points to a possible in-flight breakup.@PhilipGlamann wreckage area reports https://t.co/44m6vji9WK pic.twitter.com/IP0fGhFQrS
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) March 25, 2022
US plane crash investigators to travel to China for 737 probe
China Eastern grounded more than 200 of its Boeing 737-800s after the March 21 crash in Wuzhou, Guangxi region, which killed 132 people. Flight 5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou was cruising at about 29,000 feet when it suddenly dived at high speed, hitting a wooded hill about 100 miles from its destination.
Investigators recovered two flight data recorders – the black boxes – and sent them to the United States in the hope that they could glean information from them to understand what happened to the jet, which disintegrated into tens of thousands of pieces on impact.
(Updates with airline comment reported by local media)
–With help from Jessica Sui.
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