The flight departed Beijing's gate at 20:22 and lifted off at 20:37 local time from Runway 36R. Captain Wang Yongxiang, 35 years old with more than 11,000 flying hours, was in command. First Officer Chen Xiuming and Second Officer Pan Mintsi completed the cockpit crew. The flight proceeded normally as the aircraft crossed the Bohai Gulf toward Dalian. Then, at 21:20, as the plane neared its destination, the captain transmitted two urgent messages to Dalian tower: "fire in cabin" and "the tail is on fire." He requested an emergency landing. Four minutes later, at 21:24, the aircraft vanished from radar. It had crashed into the bay near Dalian, breaking apart on impact. There were no survivors.

Of the 103 passengers, 96 were Chinese nationals, three were Japanese, and the remaining four came from France, India, Singapore, and South Korea. Three of the passengers were children. Most were residents of Dalian, people returning home. The nine crew members included some of China's more experienced aviators. Emergency response was swift: Chinese Navy forces stationed in Dalian deployed four naval ships, and more than 30 tugboats joined the search. Rescuers recovered 60 bodies and debris, including a badly burned food cart, from the crash site. The investigation that followed would take seven months and involve both Chinese authorities and the United States National Transportation Safety Board.

Initial speculation centered on electrical failure. Chinese provincial papers suggested a short circuit might have caused the onboard fire. But the forensic evidence told a different story. The Xinhua News Agency published the investigation's findings on 8 December 2002: a passenger named Zhang Pilin had deliberately set fire to the cabin using gasoline. Wreckage analysis revealed a concentration of gasoline residue near Zhang's seat. Most passengers, including Zhang himself, had died of carbon monoxide inhalation rather than impact trauma. The aircraft's engines, cabin floor, and critical structural components showed no signs of pre-existing fire or explosion, confirming that the blaze originated in the passenger cabin.

Zhang Pilin was a married businessman with a son. He ran his own company and had accumulated a large amount of debt. On the day of the crash, he had flown from Dalian to Beijing and returned on Flight 6136 the same evening. Security camera footage showed him spending several hours smoking in the waiting hall at Beijing's airport. Before leaving Dalian that morning, he had purchased two air insurance policies. In Beijing, he bought five more, bringing his total to seven policies worth 1,400,000 renminbi, roughly 170,000 US dollars. Water bottles filled with gasoline were later found in his apartment. The crash of Flight 6136, coming just weeks after the unrelated crash of Air China Flight 129 in South Korea, prompted Chinese aviation officials to acknowledge that planned air safety reforms would need to be delayed as the industry confronted vulnerabilities no one had anticipated.