BEIJING: China Eastern Airlines resumed flying Boeing 737-800 aircraft on Sunday, flight tracking data showed, just weeks after it grounded 223 planes over a crash that killed 132 people. Flight MU5843, operating the 800 variant of the 737, departed the southwestern city of Kunming at 9:58 am local time (0158 GMT) and landed in Chengdu at 11:03 am, according to Flightradar.com.

The three-year-old jet later returned to Kunming from Chengdu, with further flights scheduled for Tuesday. Flight MU5735 — a 737-800 — was en route from Kunming to Guangzhou on March 21 when it nosedived into a mountainside, disintegrating on impact.

The jet dropped 20,000 feet (6,096 metres) in just over a minute. The velocity of the impact left twisted metal and passengers’ belongings scattered across a vast swathe of forest. The cause of the disaster, China’s deadliest plane crash in more than 30 years, is not yet known.