A Boeing 737 plane that plummeted into a Chinese hillside in 2022, killing all 132 people on board, had its fuel supply cut mid-flight, according to newly released data by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Findings by the NTSB say that the fuel switches on both engines of the China Eastern flight were moved to the "cut-off" position while it was at a cruising altitude of 8,839m (29,000ft) - supporting a theory that the crash was intentional.

The crash is the country's deadliest air disaster in decades, though the cause of the incident has long remained a mystery.

China has yet to release a final report on the incident, citing national security concerns.

The NTSB report, which was released under the Freedom of Information Act, said that the MU5735's engine speeds "decreased after the fuel switch movement".

Fuel switches are controls that regulate fuel flow into a plane's engines, used by pilots to start or shut down engines.

The newly released data was taken from one of the plane's so-called "black boxes", which record all relevant operational information. The black box was recovered from the wreckage of the plane crash and sent to the NTSB's laboratory in Washington DC for analysis.

In March 2022, the jetliner had departed from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan , and had been due to land in Guangzhou on the same afternoon.

-BBC