Flight 5210 was operated by a Bombardier CRJ-200ER, SN 7697, which was powered by two General Electric CF34-3B1 engine which was delivered in November 2002, 2 years prior to the crash. The plane took off at 08:21 local time, 15 minutes ahead of schedule, carrying 47 passengers and 6 crew members. Ten seconds after lifting off, the airplane shook for several seconds and then fell to the ground. The plane skidded through a park and crashed into a house, a park ticketing station, and a port, setting fire to several parked yachts. It then plunged into an icy lake. All 53 people on board and 2 park employees on the ground were killed in the crash.
Search and rescue
, who was out of the country at the time of the disaster, ordered an immediate rescue operation. More than 100 firefighters were dispatched to the crash site. Also sent to the disaster site were 250 police officers, 50 park staff, and 20 divers. Rescuers had to break through the ice to retrieve bodies. By the end of the day, crews had recovered 36 bodies from the frozen lake. According to a doctor who worked in a nearby hospital, rescuers had only recovered bodily organs and intestines of victims. Rescue efforts were hampered by the low temperatures. By the day after the crash, most of the plane had been recovered from the lake. A team of rescue experts from the Ministry of Communications' Maritime Bureau also arrived at the crash site on 22 November. On 24 November, investigators located the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder by the radio pings that the devices emanated.
Passengers and crew
On 23 November, the flight's passenger manifest was released by China Eastern officials. Of the 47 passengers on board, 46 were Chinese. Officials confirmed that there was only one foreigner on board, from Indonesia. The flight crew members were identified as Captain Wang Pin, Vice CaptainYang Guang, and First Officer Yi Qinwei plus two flight attendants and a security officer.
Investigation
Many witnesses stated that the plane shook for several seconds, and then exploded in mid-air. According to one witness, a blast occurred at the tail of the plane. Smoke began to pour from the plane before it crashed into the park, becoming a fireball, and then skidded across the park and into the lake. Others claimed that the plane exploded into "flaming fragments" in the air before it crashed. The crash occurred just three months after the bombing of a Tupolev Tu-154 and a Tupolev Tu-134 over Russia, which killed a total of 90 people. At the time, investigators of the Russian bombings found traces of explosives aboard the two planes. Investigators at the crash of Flight 5120, however, stated that they did not find any evidence of terrorism, according to state-run news agencyXinhua. Weather at the time of the crash was good, although the temperature was below 0 °C. A resulting hypothesis that ice particles in the fuel caused the disaster was later disproven. Further investigation revealed that the accident aircraft had been parked overnight at Baotou Airport in cold weather, causing a layer of frost to form on its exterior. The aircraft was also not de-iced prior to the flight. During takeoff, the frost contamination severely degraded aerodynamic performance, and as the jet rotated, it entered a stall from which the flight crew was unable to recover.
Aftermath
In 2006, twelve China Eastern Airlines employees were found to be responsible for the accident and received administrative punishment. China Eastern no longer operates the route of the accident. All flights between Baotou and Shanghai are now operated by its subsidiary Shanghai Airlines as Flights 9438 and 9136. Flight number 5210 was re-assigned to a Shantou-Shanghai flight.
