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[Slaylock]

China Eastern confirms fatalities after plane with 132 aboard crashes in Guangxi

Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered a full investigation into the incident. Read more at straitstimes.com.

www.straitstimes.com

A China Eastern Airlines plane crashed on Monday (March 21) in Guangxi, with many of those aboard feared dead in one of China’s worst civil aviation disasters in recent years.

Nearly 1,000 rescuers have been dispatched to where the plane went down in Teng County but fading light and challenging terrain complicated rescue efforts.

“A Boeing 737 of China Eastern Airlines lost contact over Wuzhou during the Kunming-Guangzhou flight,” the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said in a brief statement yesterday afternoon. “The plane is now confirmed to have crashed.”

Flight MU5735 had 132 people on board, 123 of whom were passengers and nine crew.

 

[Atrus]

Is that video real? That’s a vertical dive into the ground and is hard to do unintentionally.

 

[Insane Metal]

Is that video real? That’s a vertical dive into the ground and is hard to do unintentionally.

I saw this earlier today and thought the same thing. There's like 99% chance this was intentional.

 

[Northeastmonk]

It’s quite possible there was a mentally unstable person behind the cockpit and they wanted to take as many victims as possible.

 

[NoLootBoxDev]

Is that video real? That’s a vertical dive into the ground and is hard to do unintentionally.

Didn't the Boeing MAX had a similar problem?

 

[Mistake]

I once took a plane down to south china, and the plane fell out of the sky twice. First time was “maybe it’s just an air pocket…” second time was “alright, I’m going to die.” Everything fell out of the cabinets and people were screaming. After that I skipped my flight back and took a train. For months I had a lot of anxiety and couldn’t go down elevators.

Rest in peace to those people. I can’t imagine going straight down like that. Damn

 

[Vestal]

Didn't the Boeing MAX had a similar problem?

Not into a 90 degree dive. This is a different plane and does not have the same technology that cursed the Max.

 

[newtypepilot]

RIP to everyone onboard

In case anyone is wondering this is not the same model as the 737 max, so it doesn't have the same issue as the max. Looking at flightradar, the flight was at cruise altitude when it nose dived. This is strange because the plane is pretty much in auto pilot at this point. Any pilot can correct me, but isn't it hard to nose dive from 30,000 ft and maintain it??

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Holy fuck that video clip of the plane dive.

Surely that's not an accident.

RIP to the passengers and crew

 

[MaestroMike]

RIP.

 

[DaleinCalgary]

That was murder/suicide

 

[chromhound]

Look like a suicide and taking everyone with me

 

[Pegasus Actual]

From what I've read (which may or may not be true) it wasn't really a 90 degree angle, more like 60, the video just has a perspective in line with it so it's hard to tell.

Good weather... hard to say how something like this could happen, I'm sure the black box will tell the tale.

Edit: Purported dashcam showing less steep (but still quite steep) descent:

 

[Atrus]

Didn't the Boeing MAX had a similar problem?

Even those were pitched at a 40 degree angle. If real, the camera view may be skewing the perspective so it looks vertical but isn’t.

 

[Thicc Enigma]

Looks like the tail is missing, that would explain what happened.

 

[bitbydeath]

Pilot may have had a heart attack or other condition, causing them to pass out/die.

 

[Thicc Enigma]

 

[SentientStone]

RIP

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

Pilot may have had a heart attack or other condition, causing them to pass out/die.

I thought the planes pretty much fly themselves

 

[nush]

Pilot may have had a heart attack or other condition, causing them to pass out/die.

and the Co Pilot?

 

[bitbydeath]

I thought the planes pretty much fly themselves

I’m no pilot but don’t they have to be switched to that setting?

 

[bitbydeath]

and the Co Pilot?

Taking a piss??
I dunno, just saying we shouldn’t condemn the pilot without knowing the facts.

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

I’m no pilot but don’t they have to be switched to that setting?

I thought that’s the default setting. Pilots manually take off and land but I thought everything else was done by computers.

 

[Salz01]

Damn. I used to like flying. I hate the whole experience of it now. I feel sorry for the people on the plane and now their families.

 

[ipukespiders]

Oh man, that is eerie.

 

[Airbus Jr]

Fuck fuck fuck that footage was terible

Wtf happened boeing should be investigated for this

Feck that was terible rip to everyone there no one can survive that

 

[Airbus Jr]

I saw this earlier today and thought the same thing. There's like 99% chance this was intentional.

Hey wake up video is real its all over the news have some sympathy to the victim man

 

[Sakura]

I’m no pilot but don’t they have to be switched to that setting?

Even if the plane was in manual during that portion of the flight (which they normally aren't), and the co-pilot was for some reason not around, the plane wouldn't just suddenly start nose-diving.
I'm not necessarily saying it was intentional, as maybe there was some malfunction, but the pilot having a sudden heart attack or something shouldn't cause this.

 

[nush]

Wtf happened boeing should be investigated for this

China Eastern maintenance records first though. I've watch a lot of air crash investigation videos and the most common causes of crashes are pilot error or mechanical failure before design mistakes.

I seriously doubt we'll get any open and transparent investigation reports out of China, got to save face and find someone outside of China to blame.

 

[StateofMajora]

Why couldn’t he take out the poo bear with him or something. Why is it always civilians these people take with them?

That was horrible and probably not an accident.

Anyways, this is one reason I don’t fly. Not just suicidal pilots but I just fear something not being maintained correctly or even fueled up… at least with driving I have my life in my hands to an extent..

 

[Airbus Jr]

China Eastern maintenance records first though. I've watch a lot of air crash investigation videos and the most common causes of crashes are pilot error or mechanical failure before design mistakes.

I seriously doubt we'll get any open and transparent investigation reports out of China, got to save face and find someone outside of China to blame.

Nah i dont believe that ive seen too many plane from Boeing falling out now

Whats the count? This is the third consecutive plane aciddent by them? Are you going to blame every airline?

When youre looking at statistics shows you clear whos the biggest culprit

 

[M1chl]

Pilot may have had a heart attack or other condition, causing them to pass out/die.

Both of them?

 

[Gp1]

Taking a piss??
I dunno, just saying we shouldn’t condemn the pilot without knowing the facts.

There are always 2 crew members at the cockpit. Even if one of the pilots go take a piss or something another authorized crew member must be in the cockpit. They learned something after the German Wings case.

 

[nush]

When youre looking at statistics shows you clear whos the biggest culprit

It's a two horse race, Boeing or Airbus. It's not really a good metric of who made the plane is at fault that in this case the aircraft has been in service for 6 years.

 

[Insane Metal]

Hey wake up video is real its all over the news have some sympathy to the victim man

???

 

[Airbus Jr]

It's a two horse race, Boeing or Airbus. It's not really a good metric of who made the plane is at fault that in this case the aircraft has been in service for 6 years.

6 years service is not old for a plane

 

[nush]

6 years is still new for a plane

Hold up, just noticed your username.

 

[Airbus Jr]

Hold up, just noticed your username.

Has nothing to do with it i was trying to pick other username but already picked back then and the first thing crossed my mind is the name of flight i used

It seems to me that youre american and trying to defend boeing as american company no matter what ? Wondering if thats the case here?

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Pilot may have had a heart attack or other condition, causing them to pass out/die.

Unless take off or landing all planes are immediately put on autopilot, the pilot is there to control the route and take action in case anything happens. Pilots do not actually pilot the plane all the time.

 

[Kenpachii]

will a blackbox even survive a impact like this?

 

[nush]

It seems to me that youre american

 

[SJRB]

It's kinda wild how a plane crash killing all 130 passengers is barely a headline in the news.

will a blackbox even survive a impact like this?

Sure, why not?

 

[Wildebeest]

Really big news yesterday, but with everything else going on and it being in the magical mystery land of China where news is only ever good and flattering, we may never really find out what happened for real.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

It's kinda wild how a plane crash killing all 130 passengers is barely a headline in the news.

I think the fact that there’s the biggest war since 1939 happening atm might have something to do with it.

 

[nush]

it being in the magical mystery land of China where news is only ever good and flattering,

I'm in China, I've had people talking to me about it today. Too big a story to cover up.

Why it crashed will be the spin.

 

[SJRB]

I think the fact that there’s the biggest war since 1939 happening atm might have something to do with it.

...you think the Ukraine invasion is the biggest war since 1939?

 

[MidGenRefresh]

...you think the Ukraine invasion is the biggest war since 1939?

Of course it is. Look at the numbers.

 

[Wildebeest]

Of course it is. Look at the numbers.

In Europe. Much longer and more bloody wars have happened in Africa and the Middle East.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

In Europe. Much longer and more bloody wars have happened in Africa and the Middle East.

Longer or bloodier ≠ biggest. I'm talking about the number of troops involved. You have 2 biggest European nations going against each other. It is the biggest war since 1939, period.

Time will tell if it's longer or "more bloody" than other recent conflicts.

 

[12Goblins]

source: Reddit

737 pilot here. Very curious to see the details here once the flight data recorder is recovered and analyzed. Airplanes don't typically crash this way. In fact, a vertical dive like the video and flight aware data indicate, is usually not the result of some catastrophic failure. Even a flight control cable snapping, or jammed flight control wouldn't produce a continuous dive like this. As soon as the nose lowers, airspeed starts building, and with an increase in airspeed, the lift being generated across the wings also increases. With the increased lift, the nose comes back up, airspeed starts to bleed off as the airplane slowly stops descending, until enough lift decreases allowing the nose to start to fall again, and the process repeats. Even a control column held fully forward would produce a version of an inverted loop. It might not make it all the way around, but it wouldn't nose down to a vertical position and just stop there. It would go past vertical. One continuous dive from FL300 seems odd to me. That just doesn't happen. My very early gut reaction to this is either pilot error while responding to an Unreliable Airspeed Indication (iced up pitot tube and or static port), or sadly, intentional. I'm hoping there's some other explanation, but for now pilot error to some degree seems most probable.

Already seeing tracking data that points to them not diving the entire time. Looks like towards the end they arrested the decent to some degree before losing it again. If that's the case, intentionality chances are pretty much gone, unless there was some kind of struggle. This still leads me to to thinking unreliable airspeed. I've been through those scenarios in the simulator and they are extremely difficult to recognize, diagnose, and rectify. I don't know what kind of training they have, but we focus on that very situation quite regularly in the sim. The 737 has 3 systems to indicate airspeed, and altitude, 2 primary ones, and one standby. When those systems start disagreeing with each other, bad things happen.

Complicated systems interact to give us airspeed and altitude indications. Primarily a pitot tube for speed, and a static pressure system for altitude. The 737 constantly compares the data being collected and displayed to each pilot and the standby system, if any large disagreements show up we get a flag (IAS or ALT disagree message on both pilots main displays. From there we would then need to determine which display or displays was faulty, and which one we could trust. On top of that, when static issues arise, the faulty sides airspeed indicator would work like an altimeter. A descent would incorrectly show a decreasing airspeed. When we get unreliable airspeed, our procedure has us set a pre-determined pitch angle and power setting. We ignore our altimeter Android airspeed indications entirely, and simply hold a pitch angle and keep the power at a constant setting. When these failures exist, our artificial horizon and flight path angle CAN be trusted. So once we have the airplane stable, we get out our emergency checklist and go though a lengthy procedure to determine which instrument or instruments is faulty. Then we can disregard the bad side, switch everything to the good side and get on the ground. In a descent, with pitot static errors, I imagine seeing airspeed bleeding off would be alarming, and if not properly recognized, could lead you to pitching down even further to preserve that airspeed, the quicker you descend the lower your airspeed would appear to be, making you belive you're in or about to stall. When in fact, the opposite is occurring.