China Eastern restarts flights using Boeing 737-800 after March crash

Twitter

China Eastern Airlines has restarted using Boeing 737-800 jetliners for commercial flights less than a month after a crash that killed 132 people on board and grounded over 200 of its aircraft, data from a tracking website showed on Sunday.

China Eastern flight MU5843, operated by a three-year-old Boeing 737-800 aircraft, took off from the southwestern city of Kunming at 09:58 am local time (0158 GMT) on Sunday and landed at Chengdu, also in southwestern China, at 11:03 am local time, data from Flightradar24 showed.

That aircraft, which completed a test flight on Saturday, departed Chengdu at 01:02 pm for Kunming.

Another Boeing 737-800 jet conducted a test flight on Sunday morning in Shanghai, where China Eastern is based, data showed.

China Eastern was not immediately available for comment.

On March 21, Flight MU5735, which was en route from Kunming to Guangzhou, crashed in the mountains of Guangxi and killed 123 passengers and nine crew members in mainland China's deadliest aviation disaster in 28 years. 

China has retrieved both of the black boxes and has said it would submit a preliminary report to the UN aviation agency ICAO within 30 days of the event.

More from Business News

News

  • H.H. Sheikh Hamdan pays tribute to royal photographer

    His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and the UAE's Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, has offered his heartfelt condolences to the family of royal photographer Ramesh Shukla, who passed away on Sunday.

  • H.H. Sheikh Hamdan awards Arab Hope Makers

    His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and the UAE's Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, has awarded Morocco's Fouzia Jbara Mahmoudi with AED1 million as the top winner of the Arab Hope Maker initiative on Sunday.

  • UAE looks into framework to regulate children's social media use

    The UAE's Education, Human Development, and Community Development Council is working towards establishing a framework that will regulate the use of social media among children.