Chinese recovery teams on Tuesday picked through the debris of a crashed China Eastern jet after it inexplicably plummeted from the sky into a mountainside with 132 people on board.
Hopes of finding any survivors had all but vanished a day after the Boeing 737-800 passenger jet nosedived into the mountain -- likely making it China's deadliest air crash in nearly three decades.
Questions mounted over the cause of the crash, which saw the stricken jet drop 20,000 feet (6,096 meters) in just over a minute before plunging into rugged terrain in southern China on Monday afternoon.
The airline has acknowledged that some aboard the jet, which was traveling from the city of Kunming to the southern hub of Guangzhou, had died, but there has been no official confirmation of the number of dead.
President Xi Jinping quickly called for a full probe following the crash as search teams armed with drones descended upon the site in a forested, rural area of Guangxi province.
State media showed uniformed search teams clambering over upturned earth, blasted trees, and scattered debris, including a section of plane bearing the carrier's blue and red livery.
A torn wallet and a burned camera lens were among the eviscerated possessions captured on video by a reporter from the state-run People's Daily who was able to enter the crash site.
Flight MU5735, which took off from Kunming shortly after 1:00 pm (0500 GMT), lost contact over Wuzhou, a city in the Guangxi region, according to China's aviation authority.
The foreign ministry said Tuesday they believed all passengers on board were Chinese nationals.
Hopes of finding any survivors had all but vanished a day after the Boeing 737-800 passenger jet nosedived into the mountain -- likely making it China's deadliest air crash in nearly three decades.
Questions mounted over the cause of the crash, which saw the stricken jet drop 20,000 feet (6,096 meters) in just over a minute before plunging into rugged terrain in southern China on Monday afternoon.
The airline has acknowledged that some aboard the jet, which was traveling from the city of Kunming to the southern hub of Guangzhou, had died, but there has been no official confirmation of the number of dead.
President Xi Jinping quickly called for a full probe following the crash as search teams armed with drones descended upon the site in a forested, rural area of Guangxi province.
State media showed uniformed search teams clambering over upturned earth, blasted trees, and scattered debris, including a section of plane bearing the carrier's blue and red livery.
A torn wallet and a burned camera lens were among the eviscerated possessions captured on video by a reporter from the state-run People's Daily who was able to enter the crash site.
Flight MU5735, which took off from Kunming shortly after 1:00 pm (0500 GMT), lost contact over Wuzhou, a city in the Guangxi region, according to China's aviation authority.
The foreign ministry said Tuesday they believed all passengers on board were Chinese nationals.
