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Mystery surrounds airliner 'deliberately flown into a mountain' by pilots
Investigators can't explain why China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 crashed into a mountain in southern China in a 'near-vertical' dive despite no hint of any problem with the aircraft
Twelve months after a Boeing 737-800 ploughed into a mountain, killing all 132 people on board, Chinese authorities believe the aircraft was deliberately brought down by one of its crew.
China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 took off from Kunming Changshui International Airport in south-western China on March 21, 2022.
The plane was headed for regional capital Guangzhou, but half-way through its two-hour flight the aircraft inexplicably went into a steep dive and crashed into a mountainside.
According to a source connected with the official crash investigation: “The plane did what it was told to do by someone in the cockpit.”
There was no distress call from the plane, and no indication that hijackers had breached the cockpit.
A statement from China Eastern said the pilot and co-pilot had both been in good health, with no known financial or family issues.
Between them they had logged more than 38,000 hours of flight time.
CCTV footage from a mining company near the crash site showed the massive airliner in a near-vertical dive before exploding in a fireball as it hit the ground.
The plane’s flight data recorder was recovered, showing that the aircraft went into a steep dive from 29,100 feet to 7,400 feet before levelling off and climbing briefly before plunging again towards the ground at some 350mph.
A Wall Street Journal report, sourced from officials within the crash investigation, said the aircraft had been deliberately put into a vertical dive by someone on the flight deck.
There was no indication that the landing gear and flaps had been deployed during the aircraft's descent ruling out the possibility the pilots had been attempting an emergency descent or landing.
A year after the crash, investigators from China’s Civil Aviation Administration can offer no explanation for the shocking incident.
Joe Hattley, a former accident investigator with Australia’s Transport Safety Bureau, said the most likely cause of the crash was that the plane had been deliberately down into the ground.
But, he added, there was a surprising lack of information coming from the Chinese authorities, who have released information from the plane’s flight data recorder but not the cockpit voice recorder.
"Certainly as an investigator," Hattley said, "you’d be looking at data from the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, and putting all that information together to build a picture, rather than just relying on one source of information."
Responding to reports that the Chinese authorities had accessed the voice recorder, but weren’t releasing its contents, a relative of one of the crash victims said: "If that is true, it’s so terrible. China Eastern Airlines must give us a clear explanation."
In an unusually short statement released earlier this week, the authority said: "Because the accident is very complicated and extremely rare, the investigation is carrying on in an in-depth manner," adding that experts had inspected more than 100 pieces of wreckage.
"Following on this, " the statement continued, "the technical investigation team will continue to carry out work such as cause analysis, experiments and verification, and will release relevant information in a timely manner according to the investigation's progress."
Tim Atkinson, an aviation risk consultant and former senior inspector at the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch, told the Wall Street Journal: “China’s failure to publish any meaningful information or findings, by the first-year anniversary of this tragic event, leaves many unanswered questions, which is deeply unhelpful to the international aviation community, and very profoundly upsetting to those affected.”
Daily Star Sunday
Investigators can't explain why China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 crashed into a mountain in southern China in a 'near-vertical' dive despite no hint of any problem with the aircraft
Twelve months after a Boeing 737-800 ploughed into a mountain, killing all 132 people on board, Chinese authorities believe the aircraft was deliberately brought down by one of its crew.
China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 took off from Kunming Changshui International Airport in south-western China on March 21, 2022.
The plane was headed for regional capital Guangzhou, but half-way through its two-hour flight the aircraft inexplicably went into a steep dive and crashed into a mountainside.
According to a source connected with the official crash investigation: “The plane did what it was told to do by someone in the cockpit.”
There was no distress call from the plane, and no indication that hijackers had breached the cockpit.
A statement from China Eastern said the pilot and co-pilot had both been in good health, with no known financial or family issues.
Between them they had logged more than 38,000 hours of flight time.
CCTV footage from a mining company near the crash site showed the massive airliner in a near-vertical dive before exploding in a fireball as it hit the ground.
The plane’s flight data recorder was recovered, showing that the aircraft went into a steep dive from 29,100 feet to 7,400 feet before levelling off and climbing briefly before plunging again towards the ground at some 350mph.
A Wall Street Journal report, sourced from officials within the crash investigation, said the aircraft had been deliberately put into a vertical dive by someone on the flight deck.
There was no indication that the landing gear and flaps had been deployed during the aircraft's descent ruling out the possibility the pilots had been attempting an emergency descent or landing.
A year after the crash, investigators from China’s Civil Aviation Administration can offer no explanation for the shocking incident.
Joe Hattley, a former accident investigator with Australia’s Transport Safety Bureau, said the most likely cause of the crash was that the plane had been deliberately down into the ground.
But, he added, there was a surprising lack of information coming from the Chinese authorities, who have released information from the plane’s flight data recorder but not the cockpit voice recorder.
"Certainly as an investigator," Hattley said, "you’d be looking at data from the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder, and putting all that information together to build a picture, rather than just relying on one source of information."
Responding to reports that the Chinese authorities had accessed the voice recorder, but weren’t releasing its contents, a relative of one of the crash victims said: "If that is true, it’s so terrible. China Eastern Airlines must give us a clear explanation."
In an unusually short statement released earlier this week, the authority said: "Because the accident is very complicated and extremely rare, the investigation is carrying on in an in-depth manner," adding that experts had inspected more than 100 pieces of wreckage.
"Following on this, " the statement continued, "the technical investigation team will continue to carry out work such as cause analysis, experiments and verification, and will release relevant information in a timely manner according to the investigation's progress."
Tim Atkinson, an aviation risk consultant and former senior inspector at the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch, told the Wall Street Journal: “China’s failure to publish any meaningful information or findings, by the first-year anniversary of this tragic event, leaves many unanswered questions, which is deeply unhelpful to the international aviation community, and very profoundly upsetting to those affected.”
Daily Star Sunday