China plane crash was intentional, suggests black box data: Report

Beijing, May 18: A black box recovered from the China Eastern Airlines jet that crashed in March indicates someone in the cockpit intentionally crashed the plane, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

A Western official told Reuters that the focus is on the actions of the crew after the preliminary investigation did not find any indication of a technical malfunction.

On March 12, a Boeing 737 aircraft from Kunming to Guangzhou crashed in Tengxian county of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. All the 132 people on board, including nine crew members, were killed.

The flight from the city of Kunming in southwestern China was flying at 29,000 feet (8,800 metres)when it suddenly nosedived into a mountainous area, shortly before it would have started its descent to the airport in Guangzhou, a provincial capital and export manufacturing hub near Hong Kong on China's southeastern coast.

China Eastern, one of China's four major airlines, and its subsidiaries have grounded all of their 737-800 aircraft, a total of 223 planes.

It was considered China's deadliest aviation disaster in 28 years.