China plane crash: Flight data shows Boeing 737 jet had briefly pulled out of a 22,000-ft nosedive

All 132 people aboard flight are believed to be dead

Flight data has suggested that the China Eastern plane that crashed earlier this week had pulled out of a 22,000-feet dive and begun to climb back before another dive sent the Boeing 737-800 jet plummeting to the ground.

Flight MU5735, which was travelling from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou in Guangdong province, crashed on Monday.

There were 132 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 jet. But no survivors were found even though rescue efforts were underway for nearly two days before rain suspended operations on Wednesday.

Data provided by Swedish air traffic monitoring service FlightRadar24 suggested that the plane was cruising at an altitude of 29,100ft when it went into a high-speed dive at 2.20.43pm on 21 March.

It lost altitude at a maximum rate of about 31,000ft per minute or 348 mph or 560km/h, the data suggested.

Twenty seconds into the dive, the rate of the plane’s descent to the ground slowed, and over the next 45 seconds, the jet levelled off at 7,425ft above the ground. It then began climbing.

The data suggests that 15 seconds later, when the plane was at 8,600 ft above the ground, the plane had another dive. And this time it was final.

FlightRadar24 said in a blog post that its data came “directly from the aircraft’s computers and is the rate of change based on the aircraft’s sensors”.

The final data from the plane was sent at 2.22.35pm from an altitude of 3,225ft.

The plane nosedived into a mountain near the city of Wuzhou.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and the China Eastern Airline said the plane lost contact over Wuzhou.

Aviation experts are calling Monday’s crash the worst aviation disaster in China in more than a decade.

Chinese President Xi Jinping had expressed shock over the crash and had ordered immediate action to identify the cause.