(Dan Tri) – The crash of a plane carrying 132 people on March 21 has caused concerns about aviation safety in China after many years without an incident causing major damage.

Debris at the scene of a plane crash in China (Photo: Reuters).

Boeing 737-800 aircraft number MU5735 of China Eastern Airlines crashed in Guangxi while traveling from Kunming to Guangzhou on March 21.

Rescue work was carried out by Chinese authorities overnight on March 21, but one day after the accident, the rescue team still had not found any victims.

Chinese state media described the situation as `dire` and did not rule out the possibility that all passengers and crew were killed.

The accident was not only shocking because of the potential for casualties, but also because China has rarely recorded such serious incidents in the past two decades.

The scene of the Chinese plane crash

In the last 20 years, Chinese civil aviation has been generally considered safe thanks to the world’s largest investment, the most stringent procedures and the newest aircraft.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China said that as of February 19, passenger airlines in China had set a world record by operating for 100 million hours in 137 months without any major accidents.

Before March 21, the most recent plane crash with casualties occurred on August 24, 2010, when a Henan Airlines plane from Harbin crashed while approaching the airport in the province.

The last major accident before the above incident occurred 2,102 days earlier, when another China Eastern Airlines flight crashed just seconds after taking off from Baotou.

During the 1980s and 1990s, China regularly recorded fatal plane crashes.

In Guangxi alone, there were two major accidents.

The peak was in 2002, when two Chinese planes crashed consecutively within a month, including one flight over Korea on April 15 and the other over Dalian on May 7.

According to VariFlight, about 74% of the 11,800 flights scheduled to arrive in China today, March 22, have been canceled, the majority of which were flights connecting Beijing and Shanghai – one of the

Of the 35 flights scheduled from the airport in Shanghai to Beijing on March 22, only two flights operated in the morning and three other flights took off the same day.

Before the latest plane crash, China’s aviation industry was heavily affected by restrictions related to the Covid-19 epidemic, leading to a high rate of flight cancellations.