No explanation for China Jet's nosedive from 29,000 feet
When China Eastern Airlines Corp.'s jet plunged to the ground at cruise altitude while flying to Guangzhou, it suddenly nosed over.
There is pretty much no information on what caused the unusual crash on Monday, which may have killed all 132 people on board in China's worst commercial aviation accident in more than a decade.
The Boeing Co. 737-800 plunged sharply to the ground during its crash as it pointed steeply toward the ground. As veteran crash investigators and previous accident reports report, few other airliner crashes have occurred when an airliner plunged from cruising altitude.
A safety consultant and former 737 pilot says this is an odd profile. "It's hard to get the aircraft to do this."
Investigators will be trying to understand why the jet made such an abrupt and severe dive, and not just other accidents like it. After they find the jet's two crash-proof recorders and begin examining clues, they will be looking for clues to explain what happened.
The team will examine the weather the plane encountered, whether the pilots made any distress calls, if any indications of malfunctions were found in wreckage, and detailed profiles of the crew.
MU5735 was about 100 miles (160.93 kilometers) from its destination at a height of about 29,000 feet (8,839.2 meters) when it suddenly descended at a much faster speed than normal.
The plane began falling at more than 30,000 feet per minute within seconds, rather than gradually falling by a few thousand feet per minute. That is because tracking data logged by Flightradar24 indicated that the aircraft began falling at more than 30,000 feet per minute within seconds.
According to the data track, it plunged almost 26,000 feet in one minute and 35 seconds.
The plane appeared to have halted its dive for about a minute before rising briefly, an unexpected turn in the story. However, the Flightradar24 track, based on radio transmissions from the plane, then showed it resuming its plunge.
"That's strange," Jeff Guzzetti, former head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's accident investigation department, said.
Despite cautioning that the Flightradar24 data is preliminary, Guzzetti and Cox said it appears the jet took a relatively straight path and its transponders were still transmitting, suggesting the plane did not break apart in flight, as has happened in some terrorist bombings.
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