Four weeks ago, the crash of a China Eastern Airlines (China Eastern) Boeing 737-800 which killed all 132 passengers and crew on board saw the carrier suspend all flights involving its fleet of 223 of the aircraft. Having carried out extensive systematic tests on each aircraft to include structural checks and airworthiness data, a final flight test on each of the jets will be carried out before it returns to service.
According to Reuters news agency, those planes which have registration numbers which are close to that of the crashed aircraft are presently going through maintenance checks and evaluation. According to Flightradar24, data showed earlier on Sunday April 17 that China Eastern flight MU5843, operated by a three-year-old Boeing 737-800 aircraft, took off from the southwestern city of Kunming at 09:58 a.m. local time on Sunday and landed at 11:03 a.m. in Chengdu, also in southwestern China. That particular aircraft had undergone a test flight on Saturday 16 April.
On March 21, China Eastern flight MU5735 was en route from Kunming to Guangzhou when it crashed in the mountains of Guangxi, killing 123 passengers and nine crew in mainland China’s worst aviation disaster for 28 years. Both black boxes have been retrieved and Chinese authorities have stated that they would submit a preliminary report to the U.N. aviation agency ICAO within 30 days of the event.
