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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Danya Bazaraa

Woman who knew six people killed in China plane crash lights 100 candles for them

A woman with six relatives and friends on board the plane that crashed in China has lit 100 candles for them.

A search is under way around heavily forested slopes for victims and flight recorders from a China Eastern Airlines jet after it crashed on Monday in the mountains of southern Guangxi with 132 people on board.

One woman, named only by her surname Chen, said she had six relatives and friends on board MU5735, who planned to attend a burial ceremony in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.

According to the Global Times, Chen and her family lit 100 candles on their doorstep to pray for family and friends on Monday night.

Video footage showed candles being lit in an emotional scene.

A family light candles to pray for the people who were on board the flight (@globaltimesnews/Twitter)
100 candles were lit by a family (@globaltimesnews/Twitter)

Emergency personnel are continuing to scour the wreckage but rescuers have found no sign of any survivors.

Nearly 1,000 people have joined search parties combing the countryside.

Burnt remains of identity cards and wallets were also seen, state media reported.

Si, 64, a villager near the crash site who declined to provide his first name, told Reuters he heard a "bang, bang" at the time of the crash. "It was like thunder," he said.

Workers are attempting to find the plane’s black box among the wreckage to find clues as to what caused the flight to crash.

Parts of the Boeing 737-800 were strewn across mountain slopes charred by fire after China's first crash involving a commercial jetliner since 2010.

Chen and her family lit 100 candles on their doorstep to pray for family and friends on Monday night (@globaltimesnews/Twitter)
The wreckage of the plane (Twitter/ Local News)

US-based aviation analyst Robert Mann of R.W. Mann &
Company said investigators will need the flight data recorders to understand what might have caused the abrupt descent suggested by Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data.

ADS-B is a technology that allows aircraft to be tracked.

China Eastern and two of its subsidiaries on Monday grounded its fleet of 737-800 planes.

The group has 225 of the aircraft,
data from British aviation consultancy IBA shows.

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