[Izumi]

In the hours following China Eastern’s horrific passenger jet crash, which has left 132 people dead, the airline abruptly moved to ground all of its Boeing 737-800s in a dramatic response.

Horrifying CCTV footage emerged on social media within hours of the deadly crash, reportedly showing the flight MU5735 nosediving vertically from 30,000 feet towards the ground.

FlightRadar tracking data showed the aircraft cruising at 29,100ft at 2.20pm. Around two minutes later it had plummeted to just over 9,000ft and 20 seconds after that it had fallen to just 3,225ft. The data indicates a vertical descent at a terrifying 560 km/h.

But while all eyes shifted to Boeing and the safety of the specific aircraft, Australian aviation expert Neil Hansford says the crash — which is the first for the Chinese carrier in 30 years — was unlikely to be caused by a technical issue.

“Even with total loss of power, no aircraft plummets to the ground from 20,000 feet in two minutes with an event at 8,000 feet,” Mr Hansford explained to news.com.au.

“I think aircraft technical failure can be ruled out and it will be an external event … I would get on a Boeing 737-800 in an instant with an Australian carrier, so my suggestion would be it won’t be Boeing or aircraft technical related.”

While it is not yet clear what forced the sudden dip in altitude, Mr Hansford believes there are four likely scenarios that led to the catastrophe.

“It is very unlikely the pilot passed out as the non-flying pilot would have been able to very safely take over the flying and land the aircraft,” he explained.

“Likely scenarios include pilot suicide, aircraft mid-air collision with military aircraft (they don’t have transponders like civil aircraft), [flight MU5735] was struck by a missile or an on-board explosion.”

“My tipping is a human-induced event or bought down by rogue missile. Debris looks like MH117 over Ukraine, and the Chinese are providing too much information this time which is uncharacteristic.”

Speaking to The Sun Online, UKaviation expert Sally Gethin said flight data currently available suggests there was a “10 to 20-second spell where one or more of the pilots regained consciousness and tried to save the plane” before it smashed in the ground.

Ms Gethin said all of the 132 on board “would have been unconscious” for this final plunge, and while pilots of all experience levels get plenty of simulator training on the ground — the real world provides a different set of challenges.

“In the real world, they can get overwhelmed or disorientated by sudden events. This is known as the startle effect, and it is very hard to train for that,” she explained.

“Even experienced pilots can be caught off guard and that’s when they can make poor judgments. Now there are efforts to recognise that and offer additional training.”

Ms Gethin said it was “unusual” that the co-pilot on board the flight had 30,000 hours of flight experience while the pilot had just 7,000 under their belt.

It is understood a third trainee pilot with just a few hundred hours was also on the doomed flight.

Speaking to news.com.au, aviation expert and Editor-in-Chief of Airlineratings.com Geoffrey Thomas said the fact there was “no warning from the cockpit crew” and the characteristics of the aicraft’s descent profile initially suggests one of two causes for the crash.

“It would appear to have been either a catastrophic failure caused by major structural failure or a bomb,” he said, adding “pilot suicide cannot be ruled out” either.

“The two black boxes will be critical to this investigation and hopefully they will be recovered shortly.”

Mr Thomas said the aircraft involved in the crash is one of the safest in the world, with over 7,000 in service around the world performing on average about 4 flights a day.

The newer model of the 737-800, being the 737 MAX, is what was fitted with the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) system.

This variation of the 737 was involved in two crashes, one being Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29th, 2018 and the other being Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March 2019, both of which crashed shortly after takeoff and killing everyone on board both planes.

Aviation authorities around the world grounded the aircraft in response between March 2019 and December 2020.

Following the controversy around the two crashes, it was revealed that the Federal Aviation Administration in the US was not made fully aware of the new MCAS system used by the MAX.

As a result, in January last year, the US Department of Justice found Boeing guilty of conspiracy to defraud the United States over the 737 MAX certification, for which they had to pay over US$2.5 billion in penalties and compensation.

“The 737-800 is the backbone of Australia’s domestic airline fleet being operated by Qantas, Virgin Australia and Rex,” Mr Thomas said of the 737-800.

“The aircraft is Australia’s most reliable and has never been involved in an accident in this country."

The 737-800 does NOT have the MCAS system that is fitted to the 737 MAX, which is a later model.

“China’s airline system is second only in size to the United States and this is the first major crash involving one of the country’s three biggest airlines in 23 years.”

[Izumi]

From my dumb maths, I'd say that's around 15 g force plus of pressure on them. Fuck that.

Funny enough the G force is more than the maximum permitted g-force in Mikoyan MiG-35 plane and maximum permitted g-force turn in Red Bull Air Race planes which is at 10G.

Gravitational acceleration at the surface of the Sun is at 28G.

[William May]

Well, I was closer than I thought. The airspeed/altitude graphing shows 600 knots, which translates to 690 mph. So I was only 10 knots off on the descent speed. The other thing I was wondering about was the crossing of the airspeed and altitude lines as the aircraft descends. I was expecting it to show the airspeed going UP, as the aircraft went DOWN, and that is just what the graph shows.

[Berserk]

Originally Posted by houseoftechno ↗

In an instant, this jet went from controlled level flight in cruise to a catastrophic vertical descent. The crew temporarily recovered from dive and started gaining altitude, but the dive resumed and it hit the ground near vertical.

The wrote about the tail section missing .. this where my initial thoughts too, something must have happened with the tail to dive down like this ..

[Clubhouse]

Catastrophic systems failure or pilot suicide. It appeared to have a 'recovery' at one point. co-pilot trying to take control?

[rohmell]

Chinese maintenance/replacement parts.

[Izumi]

Originally Posted by Clubhouse ↗

Catastrophic systems failure or pilot suicide. It appeared to have a 'recovery' at one point. co-pilot trying to take control?

Everything to me is just pointing to pilot suicide but I'm not an expert in the field. We've seen catastrophic failures and I can't recall any that had the plane do a complete nosedive.

[Azimuth]

where is durt I want to hear his opinion.

[Azimuth]

[William May]

Originally Posted by rohmell ↗

Chinese maintenance/replacement parts.

Chinese aviation actually has a pretty impressive safety record. When they opened to the west, the basically adopted all the U.S. Federal Code of Regulations regarding aviation, lifted right from the FAA. I don't think they have had a serious accident in about 20 years. And their flight frequency is just under the U.S. statistics, and is expected to be the highest in the world over the next 3 years or so. Their aviation sector has all been built up on the U.S. and British model. The only thing they have ignored is private aviation, but they are working on that now. They just released a design for the first Chinese Private Light Aircraft, and they are starting to work on airports for light aircraft use. It looks like they will have general aviation restricted to altitudes below 13,000 feet. They show up at Oshkosh every year for the Fly-In, and have displays about Chinese Aviation Development. Whoever the head of the Chinese Aviation Department is, he's a pretty enthusiastic and future oriented kind of guy. I have flown on Chinese airlines in Mainland China a couple times, and I was impressed with how they operate. It was just like United Airlines, or American Airlines.
I will be very curious to see what the cause of this accident is determined to be.

Added 3-27 - Actually I was wrong. It has not been 20 years since a major accident in China. It has actually been 30 years.