China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210
China Eastern Yunnan Airlines Bombardier CRJ200ER · Atmospheric icing leading to loss of control
From Baotou Donghe International Airport (BAV) to Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport (SHA)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA05RA010
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 55 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 2
- Occupants
- 53
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Bombardier CRJ200ER
- Flight
- MU5210
- Aircraft type
- Bombardier CRJ200
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- B-3072
- Operator
- China Eastern Yunnan Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 53
- Route
- From Baotou Donghe International Airport (BAV)To Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport (SHA)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Not recorded
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft handling/service
- Aircraft › Fluids/misc hardware
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210 (CES5210/MU5210), also known as the Baotou Air Disaster, was a scheduled flight from Baotou in Inner Mongolia, China, to Shanghai, with a planned stopover at Beijing. On 21 November 2004, just two minutes after takeoff from Baotou, 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.
Accident
Flight 5210 was operated by a Bombardier CRJ200ER powered by two General Electric CF34-3B1 engines, and was delivered in November 2002, two years prior to the crash. The plane took off at 08:21 local time, 15 minutes ahead of schedule, carrying 47 passengers and six crew members. Ten 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.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
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.
The crash occurred just three months after the bombing of a Tupolev Tu-154 and a Tupolev Tu-134 in 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.
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.
Text from the Wikipedia article “China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210” (revision 1372018641, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210
- Revision
- 1372018641 · 2026-08-29 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q3267305
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA05RA010
- Event ID
- 20041209X01959
- Case number
- DCA05RA010
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210" (page 1395098, revision 1372018641); merged with NTSB case DCA05RA010 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA05RA010
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: total_fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: ground fatalities
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210" and NTSB case DCA05RA010, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.