It crashed in the province of Guangxi, near the city of Wuzhou.
ADVERTISEMENTA plane with 132 people on board crashed in southern China on Monday, according to the country's civil aviation authority.
It crashed in the province of Guangxi, near the city of Wuzhou.
The flight was travelling from Kunming in the western province of Yunnan to the industrial centre of Guangzhou along the east coast.
It is unclear how many people were killed or injured.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said the plane was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members, correcting earlier reports that 133 people had been on board.
The CAAC said it had sent a team of officials, and the Guangxi fire service said work was underway to control a mountainside blaze ignited by the crash.
Satellite data from NASA showed a massive fire just in the area where the plane went down.
State media said local police first received calls from villagers alerting the crash around 14:30 local time (07:30 CET).
Guangxi provincial emergency management department said contact with the plane was lost at 14:15 (07:15 CET).
China Eastern's flight No. 5735 had been travelling at around 30,000 feet when suddenly, just after 07:20 CET, the plane entered a deep dive at its cruising altitude speed of 455 knots (842 kph), according to data from flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.com.
The data suggests the plane crashed within a minute and a half of an apparent issue. The plane stopped transmitting data just southwest of the Chinese city of Wuzhou.
Boeing said it was aware of the initial reports of the crash and was “working to gather more information”.
The aircraft was delivered to China Eastern from Boeing in June 2015 and had been flying for more than six years.
The twin-engine, single-aisle Boeing 737 is one of the world’s most popular planes for short and medium-haul flights. China Eastern operates multiple versions of the common aircraft, including the 737-800 and the 737 Max.
The deadliest crash involving a Boeing 737-800 came in January 2020, when Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard accidentally shot down a Ukraine International Airlines flight, killing all 176 people on board.
The 737 Max version was grounded worldwide after two fatal crashes. China’s aviation regulator cleared that plane to return to service late last year, making the country the last major market to do so.
China’s last deadly crash of a civilian jetliner was in 2010.