China Eastern resumes Boeing 737-800 flights after crash in March

A picture of the China Eastern Airlines logo at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, March 21, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang

BEIJING, April 17 (Reuters) – China Eastern Airlines (600115.SS) The company said on Sunday it has begun reusing Boeing 737-800 planes for commercial flights in less than a month since a crash that killed 132 people and prompted the airline to ground 223 planes.

The airline said it has conducted systematic tests, structural checks and validation data verification for each aircraft, and that test flights will be conducted on all aircraft before commercial services resume.

The company told Reuters in a statement that Boeing 737-800 aircraft with registration numbers close to those that crashed on March 21 are still undergoing maintenance checks and evaluation.

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

According to Flightradar24, that plane, which completed a test flight on Saturday, returned to Kunming.

Flightradar24 data showed another Boeing 737-800 conducted a test flight early Sunday in Shanghai, where China Eastern is based.

On March 21, flight MU5735, en route from Kunming to Guangzhou, crashed in the mountains of Guangxi killing 123 passengers and nine crew members in the deadliest aviation disaster in mainland China in 28 years.

China recovered both black boxes and said it would submit a preliminary report to the United Nations aviation agency ICAO within 30 days of the event. Read more

(Reporting by Stella Keogh and Ryan Wu) Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Helen Popper

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