Drones were being used to search the fragments of wreckage that were scattered across both sides of the mountain into which the plane crashed, state media reported. [70], News concerning the crash was heavily censored in China. Chinese authorities have yet to cite mechanical or flight control issues in the March 21 crash that killed everyone onboard, the source added. One of the black boxes has been found, local media reports. [2][3][4], On 17 May, The Wall Street Journal reported a source from the US government, from officials involved in the investigation, as saying that the plane had been intentionally crashed, based on an analysis of data from the aircraft recorders. Both the NTSB and Boeing also declined to comment, deferring to the CAAC. 0. The plane that crashed on Monday was a Boeing 737-800, not the Boeing 737 Max, a newer model that was temporarily grounded worldwide following two deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Heavy rain partially filled the impact crater with water which had to be pumped away. Become a member and get exclusive access to articles, contests and more! A China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 aircraft. The steep, rough terrain and the huge size of the debris field were complicating the search for the black boxes thathold the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, CCTV and the official Xinhua News Agency said. The driver survived with injuries and later gave an interview where he claimed he never touched an accelerator pedal during the incident.. Model Y driver said he wanted to brake and park the car, but the EV . They include the October 1999 crash into the Atlantic Ocean of EgyptAir flight 990, a 767-300ER that plummeted at a descent rate reaching 39,000ft per minute. ", "China's top leadership says cause of plane crash must be found soon", "Damaged black boxes in China jet crash leave few clues into cause", "China Crash Mystery Grows as Evidence Signals Midair", "A Flight Over China in Clear Skies, Followed by a Nosedive", "China Eastern Black Box Points to Intentional Nosedive", "China Eastern crash probe looks into crew actions, sources say", "Chinese plane crash that killed 132 caused by intentional act: US officials", "China Eastern probe eyes intentional action, sources say", "Live Updates: China Eastern Plane Crashes in Remote Mountain Valley", "How Boeing is responding to the 737800 crash in China", "China Eastern Resumes Flights of Boeing 737 Model Involved in Crash", "Chinese air travel faces mass cancellations after plane crash", "China Eastern faces losses, regulatory scrutiny after fatal crash", "China Finds Flight Recorder From Plane Crash as Rain Hinders Search", "World leaders express sympathy for Chinese air crash victims", "India Puts Boeing 737 Fleets On 'Enhanced Surveillance' After China Plane Crash", "Futures edge lower, Boeing shares fall after 737 crash", "Boeing Statement on China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735", Aerial view of crash site in Guangxi (5 photos), 1946 United States Air Force C-47 Crash at Yan'an, List of China Eastern Airlines destinations, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=China_Eastern_Airlines_Flight_5735&oldid=1140170790, Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 737 Next Generation, China Eastern Airlines accidents and incidents, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 18 February 2023, at 20:20. Talking to ATC is about third on the list, he says. The plane did what it was told to do by someone in the cockpit, one individual told the Journal. [69] Nearly 89 percent of all China Eastern flights were cancelled on 22 March. Guide to Business Aviation Training and Safety 2022. Boulder City is a 30-minute . His family said he had taken a job at Guardian Flight last year. That's about all that is known for certain about the unusual. That theory had been circulating virtually since the narrowbody came down, but Chinas release of an initial accident report on 20 April included no details to dispel it. [59] However, Chinese authorities later confirmed that it was a winglet, whose loss should not severely impair airworthiness, and which is lightweight enough to either have flown to the ground in the wind or broke-up during the descent. This website uses cookies to improve your experience and for ads personalisation. Multiple reports say that the airplane was deliberately crashed, but the official investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) is ongoing. ABC News' Mark Osborne contributed to this report. You can learn more about the cookies we use here. The airline also insisted a possible cockpit intrusion wasnt plausible, citing information from a March 25 news conference during which Chinese authorities said no emergency alert had been sent beforehand, according to the report. The reason the passenger plane plunged out of the sky is still unknown. [39] Rescue workers found a 1.3-metre-long (4ft 3in) wreckage fragment, believed to be part of the aircraft, 10 kilometres (6mi) from the main site. [61][62] News reports published by ABC News on the same day concurred with the Wall Street Journal's report of the investigating officials in the US government declaring that the aircraft had been deliberately put into a vertical dive by a person on the flight deck, also citing flight recorder data showing that the landing gear and flaps had evidently not been engaged or deployed during the aircraft's descent which would indicate the pilots attempting an emergency descent or landing. [19][20], The aircraft involved was a Boeing 737-89P[a] (737NG or 737 Next Generation) with the registration B-1791 and serial number 41474. The China Eastern flight was aboard a Boeing model 737-800, a widely used plane with one of the best safety records in commercial aviation. The crash of a Tara Air turboprop has become the third fatal incident involving the carrier since 2010. Mr Zhu said the aircraft did not respond to repeated calls from air controllers during its rapid descent. In addition, 737NGs are not equipped with the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System the troubled flight-control system implicated in two crashes of the newer 737 Max. One device, the flight data recorder, captures information about the planes airspeed, altitude, direction up or down, pilot actions, and performance of all key systems. Boeing has delivered more than 5100 of them over the past 24 years, and China is the biggest market, with nearly 1200, according to aviation consultant IBA. A majority of flight services between Beijing and Shanghai were cancelled. "The NTSB doesn't comment on investigations led by other authorities. Rescue personnel at the crash site of flightMU5735. Claims 'human activity' caused Boeing 737 crash Prominent aviation expert Neil Hansford claims a technical fault would not have caused such a sudden and rapid descent for the China Eastern . "9P" is the, Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, List of accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 737, "China Eastern crash probe looks into crew actions: Report", "Black Box Data Reportedly Suggest China Eastern Jet Crash Was Intentional", "China Eastern Plane Crash Data Suggest Intentional Dive, WSJ Says", "Flight data from China Eastern jet points to intentional nosedive -WSJ", "Flight history for China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735", "China Eastern Boeing 737 Jet Crashes With More Than 130 on Board", "China Eastern Airlines flight 5735 crashes en route to Guangzhou", "Chinese airliner carrying 132 people crashes", "MU5735", "MU5735133257", "Here's Everything We Know About the China Plane Crash So Far", "Video reportedly shows aftermath of passenger plane crash in China", "No survivors found in China Eastern plane crash, state media says", "Chinese Plane Crash Follows Rapid Growth at Airline Without Safety Incidents", "China Eastern Crash Is Rare Disaster for State-Run Airlines", "B-1791 China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-89P(WL)", "Live Flight Tracker Real-Time Flight Tracker Map", "Previous crashes may give clues to China jet's mystery plunge", "China Eastern: Plane carrying 132 people crashes in Guangxi hills", "What We Know About the Crash of China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735", "Chinese Boeing jet crashes in mountains with 132 on board, no sign of survivors", "A Black Box From China Eastern Airlines Plane Crash Is Found", "Black box from crashed China Eastern plane found in 'severely damaged' condition", "At Controls of Crashed China Eastern Jet: One of Country's First Commercial Pilots", "Passenger plane crashes in southern China", "China Eastern Airlines passenger jet crashes with 132 people on board", "China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735: debris and belongings recovered but search for survivors continues", "Search at China plane crash site suspended amid rain and landslide fears", "China examines cockpit voice recorder from crashed airliner", "Pieces fell off China crash plane in mid-air", "One black box from China Eastern plane found, along with some human remains", "China confirms all on board China Eastern plane died in crash", "All 132 victims of China Eastern Airlines crash identified through DNA testing", "Search finds 49,000 pieces of plane in China Eastern crash", "Boeing 737 passenger jet crashes in China with 132 people on board", "US names investigator as representative to China Boeing 737800 crash probe", "China finds first black box from crashed jet, U.S. discussing quarantine for investigators", "US officials can travel to China to aid crash investigation", "Black box found from crashed China Eastern Jet Chinese aviation regulator", "China found the plane's Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT)", "Second 'black box' found in China Eastern plane crash", "U.S. experts analyzing black boxes from China Eastern Boeing 737 that nose-dived into mountainside killing 132", "Voice recorder in Chinese crash comes to D.C. as U.S. investigators head to China", "China Eastern crash: What do we know so far? The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. China's last major airline crash was in 2010, when an Embraer ERJ-190LR operated by Henan Airlines crashed while trying to land on a foggy runway, catching fire and killing 44 of the 96 people. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said all information on the investigation will come from their counterparts in the Civil Aviation Administration of China, but regulators and Boeing have not flagged any mechanical issues. They cited ICAO guidelines that assign the country in which the crash occurred with responsibility for releasing information. Americas owner-flown aircraft enthusiasts and active-pilot resource, delivered to your inbox! [26] Liu Ning, secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in Guangxi, visited the crash site and ordered an "all-out" search and rescue operation. What we know about the plane The China Eastern Airlines plane was a Boeing 737-800, the most popular version of Boeing's jets now in service and the workhorse of many. It crashed into the side of a mountain in a remote, forested area outside the city of Wuzhou. One video showed the plane nose-diving into the ground. This was especially so after security cam video of the plane in a steep nosedive emerged. China's state-run media said the crash led to a fire on a. Boeing, however, has long since addressed that problem, without any further incidents. But Cox warns against placing too much confidence in the descent rates as derived from the ADS-B numbers; in particular he highlights a sequence in the data which appears to show the aircraft stopping its dive at7,425ft, and then climbing, to 8,600ft, before pitching down again and continuing its descent. Investigators will look at the maintenance history of the plane, the training and record of the pilots, communication the pilots had with air traffic control and weather data. [53] The two flight recorders were sent to a facility in Washington, D.C. for analysis. US investigators, however, do not have all information available to their Chinese counterparts, one source told the newspaper. [6][7], Contact with the aircraft was lost over the city of Wuzhou. The jet was airworthy and the crew were qualified, and investigators have no evidence the 737 was carrying dangerous cargo. May 18, 2022 - That kind of vertical dive, without a radio call of any kind from the flightcrew, could clearly indicate a human activity to make that happen, says aviation safety consultant and former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) member John Goglia. The report suggests that US officials believe one of the aircrafts pilots could have caused the disaster, but are also considering the possibility that somebody else access the cockpit and caused the crash. The steepness of the slope made the positioning of heavy equipment difficult. The FAA did not ground the planes. The Wall Street Journal is reporting an update regarding the crash of China Eastern flight MU5735, which was scheduled to operate from Kunming (KMG) to Guangzhou (CAN). No foreigners are believed to have been on board. Flight MU5735 was at 8800 metres on Monday afternoon when it went into a dive about an hour into its flight, according to flight-tracking website FlightRadar24. [43], China Eastern established a hotline for family members[67] and announced that its Boeing 737-800 fleet would be grounded for inspection until the investigation was completed. China Eastern Black Box Points to Intentional Nosedive (WSJ), China Eastern crash probe looks into crew actions, sources say (Reuters), China Eastern plane crash likely intentional, US reports say (BBC), For full details of graphics available/in preparation, see Menu -> Planners. [42] Chinese leadership called for open, timely and transparent publication of information about the crash. [23] It is not equipped with the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) used on the newer 737 MAX that led to two fatal accidents in 2018 and 2019 and the subsequent grounding of the fleet. Of those, nearly 4,300 remain in service, according to Cirium. The jet banked steeply and the pilots were unable to recover. [35] Aircraft wreckage and victims' belongings were found, but no signs of human remains were detected. China Eastern responded immediately to the crash by grounding its 737-800s. The plane appeared to nosedive from a cruising altitude of. [56] No components of common explosives were detected. The crash of a Boeing 737-800 passenger jet in Chinas southwest started a fire big enough to be seen from space and forced rescuers to search a rugged, remote mountainside. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), NTSB and Boeing are assisting with Chinas investigation. Breaking News: A story in the Wall Street Journal reports that the crash of the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 that went down in March in a remote area of Southeast China killing all 132 aboard was caused by human input. What does the future of aviation look like in 2022? China Eastern flight MU5735 took off on 21 March from Kunming, heading east and climbing to a cruise altitude of 29,100ft. 2 min read. The near-vertical descent of the plane, they believe, would've required intentional force. Flight data indicates a China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed in March was intentionally put into a nose-dive, according to US media reports. All Rights Reserved Also recovered, 10kms away from the crash site, is a piece of wreckage indicating mid-air break up, which could possibly support the theory of a rear bulkhead failure. We've received your submission. The China Eastern 737-800s flight data recorder. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) told China's state-run daily Global Times on Wednesday (18), that it has confirmed with staff from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) participating in the investigation into the crash of China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735, that they have not released any information about the investigation, refuting previous foreign media . Cox also cites two similar 737 crashes caused by a rudder servo valve problem: USAir flight 427 (a 737-300) in 1994, and United Airlines flight 585 (a 737-200) in 1991. There should have been some sort of a call, he says. 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