China says all 132 people aboard crashed flight dead

Baku, March 26, AZERTAC

All 132 passengers and crewmembers aboard the Boeing 737 that crashed in China on March 21 are dead, Hu Zhenjiang, Deputy Administrator of China’s Civil Aviation Administration, said at a news conference on Saturday, TASS reports.

"All 123 passengers and nine crew on board China Eastern Airlines' Flight MU5735 that crashed Monday are dead," he said at the news conference broadcast by China Central Television (CCTV).

"It is possible to say with certainty that no traces of any alive people who were on board have been found during the search and rescue operation. Through DNA tests, we were able to identify 120 victims," the official added.

The China Eastern Airlines flight en route from Kunming to Guangzhou crashed in a mountainous area in the Guangxi Autonomous Region earlier on Monday. The Boeing 737 airliner had been in operation since 2015.

The flight’s cockpit voice recorder was found on Wednesday. Its surface was badly damaged, but the recording material was intact. It was taken to Beijing for decoding. The flight data recorder has not been found yet. No traces of explosives have been detected at the crash site.