China Easterns Boeing (NYSE:BA) 737-800 crashed yesterday in China. The aircraft was carrying 132 people on board, flying from the city of Kunming to Guangzhou when it crashed mid-flight in the southern region of Guangxi.
No bodies or survivors have been found yet, according to the Chinese state media.
The aircraft was flying at an altitude of 29,100 feet before it started diving sharply, falling over 25,000 feet in just two minutes. The aircraft involved in the accident was flying in China since June 2015.
The crash was unprecedented, said independent aviation analyst Alex Macheras, citing the aircrafts exceptional safety record.
Air travel is the safest form of transport. But when we do suffer incidents or accidents, we dont see anything like what we have seen in China over the last 24 hours, Macheras said.
This nosedive was simply unprecedented, especially from cruising altitude. Were talking about the safest phase of the flight. Thats why those answers are going to be needed as soon as possible to determine, he added.
Heres what top Boeing analysts have to say about yesterdays events.
Morgan Stanleys Kristine Liwag (Overweight, $288): "The three things that provided investors some comfort regarding Boeings stock are 1) the 737 NG is one of the safest aircraft in service. The 737 NG is one of the workhorses of the global aircraft fleet. There have been ~6,765 deliveries of the aircraft over its lifetime, 2) the crash did not involve the beleaguered MAX (the 737 NG does not have the MCAS software of the MAX), and 3) there are currently no regulatory groundings of the aircraft. Although the stock may be muted in the short-term, we continue to like the setup in the medium to long-term given the information we know today."
UBS Myles Walton (Buy, $290): "There is no reason to assume a linkage in cause between prior MAX crashes and the current NG crash but given the opacity of the MAX return to service in China there will be at least a perception of incremental delay for the MAX return to commercial schedules. As of this morning, China Eastern has chosen to ground the remainder of its 100+ 737-800 aircraft pending the crash investigation (~20% of China Eastern's fleet of all aircraft and about 2% of the world's ~6,800 737NG aircraft) but we would not expect others to follow."
Cowens Cai von Rumohr (Outperform, $230): "Under normal circumstances, authorities would not ground all 737's after a crash unless there were reason to suspect a common problem. Given BA's problems with the 737 MAX, there is some chance that consumers may not want to fly on a 737 until the cause of the China Eastern crash is determined not to be a design or manufacturing issue."
Boeing stock price closed 3.59% in the red yesterday.
By Senad Karaahmetovic