A friend, a fiancée, and a mother. China expresses its condolences to the victims of the China Eastern Airlines crash.

According to the Beijing Youth Daily, one man and his long-distance fiancée had been together for five years. "We hadn't seen each other in four months, and we were genuinely missing each other," he added.

Mar 23, 2022 - 12:06 Updated: Mar 23, 2022 - 12:19

A friend, a fiancée, and a mother. China expresses its condolences to the victims of the China Eastern Airlines crash.

One of the passengers was a woman who was flying to see her daughter after a long absence. Another was a woman who was on her way to see her fiancé for the first time after months apart.

Those waiting for their loved ones were struck with horror on Monday when China Eastern Airlines flight 5735, en way from Kunming to Guangzhou, crashed in the densely forested mountains of southern China.

Rescuers searched the accident scene for a third day on Wednesday but found no survivors. Meanwhile, as people around the country express messages of sadness, testimonies of the victims are emerging on state media, painting a portrait of the 132 persons on board.

Their pain has been heightened by two years of isolation and separation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the Beijing Youth Daily, one man and his long-distance fiancée had been together for five years. "We hadn't seen each other in four months, and we were genuinely missing each other," he added.

His fiancée had planned to come to Guangzhou to see him on March 22, but she missed him so much that she altered her trip to MU5735, which was earlier.

Another woman informed the news organization that she had been living in another country for several years and hadn't seen her mother in a long time.

Her mother was on her way to see her and had intended to transit through Shanghai, but altered her ticket to Guangzhou after receiving advice from a travel agent.

Among the passengers was a young girl, according to Beijing Youth Daily. A student in Kunming city, she was on her way home to Guangzhou to celebrate her 16th birthday with friends and family.

Unbeknown to her, her friends had planned a surprise party. Before boarding the flight, she texted a friend, saying: "When I see you all, I need to give you a proper hug."

Others on board included young professionals on business trips and newlyweds, according to state media.

The Boeing 737-800 plane accident on Monday as China's biggest flying disaster in more than a decade.

The jet was "flying normally" until suddenly starting to plummet and losing communication with ground control just over an hour into the flight, according to an airline spokesperson during a news conference Tuesday night. He noted that pre-flight inspections revealed nothing was wrong, and that all crew members were healthy and certified.

More than 2,000 emergency personnel have been dispatched to the scene in search of the so-called black boxes, which are flight data and cockpit voice recorders that may contain important information on how the accident occurred. Due to severe rain, the search has been halted since Wednesday morning.

According to the state-run newspaper Global Times, the airline has contacted the families of all passengers and crew members on board. Some relatives gathered near the Guangzhou airport, where the flight was scheduled to land, waiting for news of their loved ones in a cordoned-off area. Others are heading to Wuzhou, which is close to the crash site, where several hotels are preparing rooms for the families.

The Chinese Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC) is conducting an investigation, which is being assisted by the US National Transportation Safety Board and the US Federal Aviation Administration.

Air crash investigators warned on Tuesday that their probe into the cause of the crash will be "very difficult" due to how severely damaged the plane is.

"Because the investigation has just begun, we are not able to make a clear judgment about the cause of the accident with the information we have so far. The investigation team will spare no effort to collect evidence from all parties and focus on search," a CAAC official said.

The crash prompted an outpouring of mourning online, with the topic trending for the past few days on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform. Related hashtags have been viewed hundreds of millions of times, with many people urging privacy and respect for the victims' families.

The national outcry was heightened by images and videos from the incident, particularly a video shot by a mining business near the crash site, which showed what appeared to be a plane flying swiftly toward the forest, nearly vertical in its descent.

CNN cannot independently verify the video's authenticity or that the alleged aircraft is MU5735, but the steep descent fits flight tracking data, which showed the China Eastern plane plummeted more than 25,000 feet (7,600 meters) in less than two minutes.

Many Weibo users also noted that the tragedy's sadness is compounded by the hardships of life under Covid, with many families dispersed and unable to see each other. The drop came as a shock to China, which is currently fighting its largest Covid wave since Wuhan 2020.

"After the pandemic, they should have been permitted to go home for a reunion and travel with their families," one individual said on Weibo. "(The Guangzhou airport) still has all of their favorite folks."

"We've missed too many great things in the past two years because of Covid-19 or other reasons," another commented. "Perhaps all of the passengers on the plane had texts on their phones saying, "See you later,' ' You're nearly there,

' 'Finally, we don't need to do long-distance relationships anymore.' But their lives ended at that moment while receiving those messages."