Posted on 03/22/2022 7:45:37 PM PDT by the_daug
Crash: China Eastern B738 near Guangzhou on Mar 21st 2022, lost altitude and impacted terrain
By Simon Hradecky, created Monday, Mar 21st 2022 10:55Z, last updated Tuesday, Mar 22nd 2022 16:38Z A China Eastern Boeing 737-800, registration B-1791 performing flight MU-5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou (China) with 123 passengers and 9 crew on board, was enroute at 8900 meters/FL291 about 130nm west of Guangzhou nearing the top of descent at 14:20L (06:20Z) when the aircraft suddenly lost altitude and impacted ground about 119nm west of Guangzhou in mountaineous terrain. A search and rescue operation reached the crash site but found no survivors.
China's Civil Aviation Authority (CAAC) confirmed the aircraft has crashed. Contact with the aircraft was lost in the Wuzhou region (about 120nm west of Guangzhou).
The airline confirmed the crash and fatalities in a note to the stock exchanges (though not stating how many people had died in the crash).
China's Civil Aviation Authority have opened an investigation into the crash. The NTSB have appointed an accredited representative and have joined the investigation together with representatives of Boeing and engine manufacturer CFM.
Guangxi Region's (including Wuzhou Region) Emergency Services reported contact with the aircraft was lost at 14:15L (06:15Z).
On Mar 22nd 2022 the CAAC held a press conference stating that the search for the black boxes is still underway. No survivors have been found at the crash site, which has two parts, part of the aircraft fell onto one side of a hill and the other part onto the other side. A safety inspection of all Boeing 737s operating in China will be conducted in the next weeks. In detail the CAAC stated: China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 took off from Kunming at 13:16 on March 21, and entered the Guangzhou control area at a cruising altitude of 8900 meters at 14:17. At 14:20, the controller noticed that the aircraft's was sharply descending and called the crew several times but without reply. At 14:23 the radar signal of the aircraft disappeared. The aircraft was found crashed in Teng County, Wuzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. There were 123 passengers (all Chinese, no foreigner) on board, 3 pilots, 5 flight attendants and 1 safety officer. The aircraft had first flown on Jun 22nd 2015 and had since accumulated 18,239 flight hours in 8,986 flight cycles.
Mode-S data transmitted by the aircraft suggest the aircraft was enroute at 8900 meters/FL291 about 130nm west of Guangzhou at 14:20L (06:20Z) when the aircraft began a rapid descent, the last position from the transponder was received from position N23.34 E111.15 at 3200 feet MSL at 14:23L (06:23Z).
“lost altitude and impacted terrain”
Duh, who would have guessed that would happen?
last updated Tuesday, Mar 22nd 2022 16:38Z
Captained by “Flu Tu Low”
...lost altitude..?
Don’t all planes do that?
Reason #1 why I quit flying in 1996, just after TWA800 was shot down.
I saw the crash video, the angle of the plane was 90 degrees straight into the ground.
Lost altitude? Yeah, like a lawn dart.
That looked like a jihadi dive.
Lost altitude, then all forward speed.
Years ago the 737 had several nose in accidents. Back then I think it was traced to a hydraulic redundancy issue but I thought that was cured. Wonder if we’ll ever know the truth?
Well, as opposed to a controlled flight into terrain I guess.
This reminds me if the crash where the jackscrew on the tail of that plane that crashed in Colorado years ago, failed.
An interesting comment; “The CCTV depiction of a vertical nose down does not make sense. The wings are generating a lot of lift and unless that lift in cancelled by control input it would not stay vertical. Momentarily after a falling leaf stall it would be only momentarily vertical.
CONCLUSION: If the wings had not fallen off only control inputs could keep it vertical.”
need to find the black boxes.
Alaska, not Colorado I guess.
“In near vertical attitude”
The one with the jackscrew problem was an Alaska Air MD-80 off the coast of California. I remember it because my father-in-law used to be a mechanic for Alaska. It happened when he was still working for them.
The jackscrew-related accident was Alaska Airlines. It was an MD-80 that had an elevator failure due to the jackscrew (which controls elevator trim) being worn. It rolled inverted and crashed off the California coast. The Colorado Springs accident was a 737, but I don’t believe the NTSB was ever able to conclusively determine the cause. If I remember correctly, because of other similar 737 accidents around that time they presumed that the accident was caused by failure of the rudder actuator. In the other 737 accidents, it was discovered that in rare cases when the actuator failed, it would actually move the rudder in the opposite direction from the pilot’s rudder pedal input.
This accident in China is really weird, because it’s hard to get a commercial jet to dive that steeply for very long unless you’re intentionally holding the yoke forward. Even then it gets harder as the speed builds because more speed generates more lift, and that creates a nose up pitching moment. Another jackscrew problem could cause something like that, or a jihadi at the controls.
Alaska Airlines Flight 261 en-route from Puerta Vallarta to San Francisco, January 31, 2000.
Flight 261 hit the Pacific Ocean at high speed, about 14 mi (23 km; 12 nmi) offshore, between the coastal city of Port Hueneme, California, and Anacapa Island.
Bad maintenance (lubrication) by Alaska Airlines caused the jackscrew controlling the horizontal stabilizer to fail.
“Alaska Airlines’ extension of its lubrication interval for its McDonnell Douglas MD-80 horizontal stabilizer components, and the FAA’s approval of that extension, the last of which was based on McDonnell Douglas’s extension of the recommended lubrication interval, increased the likelihood that a missed or inadequate lubrication would result in the near complete deterioration of the jackscrew-assembly acme-nut threads, and therefore, was a direct cause of the excessive wear and contributed to the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 accident.”
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