| Occurrence Type: | Accident |
| China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210 | |
| Type: | Atmospheric icing leading to loss of control |
| Site: | Baotou Erliban Airport, Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China |
| Coordinates: | 40.6508°N 109.8419°W |
| Total Fatalities: | 55 |
| Passengers: | 47 |
| Crew: | 6 |
| Survivors: | 0 |
| Fatalities: | 53 |
| Aircraft Type: | Bombardier CRJ200ER |
| Tail Number: | B-3072 |
| Origin: | Baotou Erliban Airport |
| Stopover: | Beijing Capital International Airport |
| Destination: | Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport |
| Operator: | China Eastern Yunnan Airlines |
| Iata: | MU5210 |
| Icao: | CES5210 |
| Callsign: | CHINA EASTERN 5210 |
| Ground Fatalities: | 2 |
| Occupants: | 53 |
China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210 (CES5210/MU5210), also known as the Baotou Air Disaster, was a flight from Baotou Erliban Airport in Inner Mongolia, China, to Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, with a planned stopover at Beijing Capital International Airport. On 21 November 2004, just two minutes after takeoff, the Bombardier CRJ200ER fell from the sky and crashed into a lake in Nanhai Park, next to the airport, killing all 53 people on board and two more on the ground.
An investigation by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) revealed that the plane had not been deiced by the ground crew while it was parked on the tarmac. Ice accumulation on the wings caused the plane to lose its lift, causing the crash. It is the deadliest accident involving a CRJ100/200 series, and was the deadliest in China Eastern Airlines' history at that time until the crash of Flight 5735 on 21 March 2022, which killed 132 crew and passengers.[1]
Flight 5210 was operated by a Bombardier CRJ200ER, SN 7697, which was powered by two General Electric CF34-3B1 engines, which was delivered in November 2002, two years prior to the crash. At the time of the accident, the plane was still painted with China Yunnan Airlines livery, despite the airline having merged with China Eastern Airlines in 2003. The plane took off at 08:21 local time, 15 minutes ahead of schedule, carrying 47 passengers and six crew members. 10 seconds after taking 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 moored yachts. It then plunged into an icy lake. All 53 people on board and two park employees on the ground were killed in the crash.
Chinese leaders Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao and Huang Ju, ordered an immediate rescue operation.[2] 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.[3]
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.[4] On 24 November, investigators located the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR) by the radio pings that the devices emitted.[5] [6]
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 only one foreigner was on board, from Indonesia.[7] The flight crew members were identified as Captain Wang Pin (33), Vice Captain Yang Guang (37), and First Officer Yi Qinwei (27), plus two flight attendants and a security officer.[8]
Many witnesses stated that the plane shook for several seconds, and then exploded in midair. 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.[9]
The crash occurred just three months after the bombing of a Tupolev Tu-154 and a Tupolev Tu-134 over Russia, which killed 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 agency Xinhua.[9]
The crash was also just one month after Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701, which also involved a CRJ200, prompting the Civil Aviation Administration of China to ground all CRJ200's for one month, until no technical faults with the aircraft were determined.[10] [11]
Weather at the time of the crash was good, although the temperature was below 0C. 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 deiced 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.
In 2006, 12 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 (to Pudong). Flight number 5210 was reassigned to a Shantou-Shanghai flight.
Flight 5210 was the deadliest plane crash in the airline's history until the crash of Flight 5735 in 2022 which killed 132.