On 7 May 2002, the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 operating the flight crashed into the bay near Dalian shortly after the pilot reported fire on board, killing all 103 passengers and 9 crew members.

[2][failed verification] The aircraft had been involved in two previous hijackings (neither of which resulted in fatalities) to Taipei, Taiwan, both of which occurred in 1993 and both destination are Fuzhou: The plane left its boarding gate at Beijing Capital International Airport at 20:22 and took off at 20:37 local time (12:37 UTC) from Runway 36R.

Chinese Navy forces stationed in Dalian deployed four naval ships into the crash site.

Rescuers immediately recovered 60 bodies and debris from the crash site, including a badly burned food cart.

[7] President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji ordered aviation, police and transport agencies and the Chinese military to fully organize and support the rescue efforts.

The panel consisted of vice secretary-general of the State Council Long Quan; heads of the Ministry of Communications, the General Administration of Civil Aviation, the Ministry of Public Security, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the United States.

The possibility of an in-flight fire became higher after rescuers retrieved a badly burnt food cart on the crash site.

Zhang had purchased seven air insurance policies worth a total of 1,400,000 renminbi (about 170,000 USD) prior to boarding the flight.

According to security camera recordings, he had spent several hours smoking cigarettes in the waiting hall of Beijing airport.

The investigation also showed that Zhang was married, had a son, ran his own company, and was in a large amount of debt.