The cause of the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 is still unclear. The machine with 123 passengers and nine crew members crashed on Monday in a mountainous area in southern China’s Guangxi region. There were no survivors.
The available data on the crash pose a mystery to experts. The Boeing 737-800 had lost altitude in a very short time and had crashed almost vertically, as data from the flight website Flightradar24 showed.
Within three minutes, the machine fell from 8,870 meters to a height of 982 meters before disappearing from radar. The ex-head of the French aviation investigation authority (BEA), Jean-Paul Troadec (73), called this data “very unusual”. However, it is still “much too early” to draw any conclusions.
“It’s inexplicable”
The German aviation expert Andreas Spaeth (55) cannot explain the sudden crash. “It is not yet clear why exactly at the point where the regular descent normally begins on this flight, the aircraft suddenly almost goes into free fall,” said the expert to “Bild”. One thing is clear: “Crashes from cruising altitude are extremely rare, this is usually the least dangerous phase of the flight.”
It is striking that the crash seemed to stop at an altitude of around 2400 meters for around ten seconds before the plane continued its descent. “It’s inexplicable at the moment,” says expert Spaeth. “It at least shows that the aircraft was still intact and manoeuvrable after the previous extreme nosedive.”
The Swiss aviation expert Stefan Eiselin (54) also describes the crash at such high speed as “very unusual”. As a rule, something like this does not happen from one second to the next, said Eiselin to “Bild”. “Here it looks as if everything happened extremely quickly.”
Black box found
Possible causes of the crash include a technical malfunction, medical problems or the suicide of a pilot. A weather-related event or a terrorist attack cannot yet be ruled out.
The authorities are hoping for valuable information from the evaluation of a black box that was found during search work on Wednesday. According to the Chinese civil aviation authority, the device was so badly damaged that it was initially unclear whether it was the flight data recorder or the voice recorder in the cockpit. A preliminary investigation showed that it might be the voice recorder. The storage unit was therefore relatively complete. The device was sent to Beijing for further assessment.
Rainfall hinders investigations
Investigations are hampered by heavy rains. A reporter from Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, who had access to the crash site, said Wednesday there was a risk of “small landslides”. The rescue work was therefore interrupted.
A large crater filled with water formed as a result of the crash, the CCTV reporter said. Before the search for missing persons and the flight recorders can be resumed, drainage work may be necessary to dry the area.
Head of state Xi Jinping (68) asked the authorities after the crash to determine the cause of the accident as soon as possible. According to media reports, China Eastern is grounding all Boeing 737-800 aircraft until further notice. (sst)
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