Boeing 737 Crashes In China

China Eastern flight MU5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou, operated by six year old Boeing 737-800 registration B-1791, crashed near Wuzhou, China. After descending at a rate of over 30,000 feet per minute, the 123 passengers and 9 crew are presumed not to have survived though rescue crews are on the scene.

According to China’s aviation authority,

On March 21, 2022, a Boeing 737 of China Eastern Airlines lost contact over Wuzhou during the Kunming-Guangzhou flight.

The plane has now been confirmed to have crashed. There were 132 people on board, including 123 passengers and 9 crew members. The Civil Aviation Administration has activated the emergency mechanism and dispatched a working group to the scene.

In 2015 Delta Air Lines took a 3.55% stake in China Eastern. In 2017 China Eastern took a 10% stake in Air France KLM.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. Surely heading almost straight down is intentional. Would any kind of mechanical failure cause that response from an airframe without any kind of recovery possible on the part of the crew?

  2. This is why you never let Biden sit in the captain’s seat when it comes to the economy.

  3. Alan, that is so incredibly disrespectful at a time like this. I hope your mother is ashamed of you. The rest of us are.

  4. @Airfarer. On the contrary, heading straight down could mean that the aircraft stalled for whatever reason… Whether that be due to a mechanical failure, issues with airspeed indicators etc.

  5. Alan , People have died and loved ones lost and you’re going to make a comment like that ? Sick !

  6. @ Pogonation. Thanks. But even if there was a complete hydraulic, engine (or whatever) failure, the crew would be able to at least decend at an angle. I’m not suggesting that the outcome would have been different.

  7. This is a strange event. Airplanes don’t just fall out of the sky for no reason. According to flgihtradar24, the flight had been maintaining level flight at 29,100′ and 455 knots ground speed then rapidly descended and crashed about three minutes later. It seems the airspeed was also constant prior to the crash which rules out an aerodynamic stall. Engine failure also seems an unlikely cause of the crash even in the unlikely event of a simultaneous double engine failure because the pilots could have glided for a great distance from that altitude and airspeed.

    The most significant issue is the communication from the flight deck or lack thereof. I’ve seen no reports of Mayday calls. If there was no communication from the flight deck, it might mean an intentional act.

  8. @Airfarer. There is insufficient data to suggest that it didn’t descend at an angle (The video of the final moments doesn’t really give us much). I am no expert but suspect there are a whole number of things that could have caused it to descend rapidly such as complete loss of control of the elevator, damage to the structure in the air etc. Also if in an irrecoverable stall then the aircraft descends as it wishes, since it is by definition no longer under control of the pilots.

    It is interesting that they appear to have momentarily regained control and started a gentle ascent again before diving once again very shortly after. If you’re interested, there seems to be some more in depth discussion over on airliners.net

    An absolute tragedy and hopefully some more light will be shed on what actually happened in the coming days/weeks.

  9. @Alan
    Sleepy Joe has very little to do with the economy but market forces do. Don’t you have anything else to do except attack Biden every chance you get, especially after what just happened.?

  10. @ Pogonation, The decent from 29,000′ to 3,000′ took less than three minutes. That means it was almost vertical not at any angle approaching a normal flight attitude or a glide. A stall at 29,000′ is completely recoverable.

    There was an attempt to reverse the dive when the altitude was a little less than 10,000′ msl and 7,000′ agl. I think the elevator must have been working at that point in order to get the nose up and reduce the rate of descent. Pulling up at that point might have decreased the airspeed enough to then cause a stall or some kind of structural failure.

    The pilots had plenty of time to make a Mayday call. The question is what if anything did the pilots say to ATC. The cockpit voice recorder and black box data will tell the story.

  11. People love to talk – whatever happened hopefully will be discovered. To often, people make comments without knowing the facts and these comments are taken as being true, even though there is nothing to back up the comments.

  12. Do you think the engines were still on to make it fall so quickly or would it not matter?

  13. Very odd crash indeed….30,000 fpm then a slight recovery then continuing down (saw that in another report)….
    Sounds like pitch issues with no control response available or maybe an induced stall due to not noticing and engine failure till too late, but that sure seems hard to fathom. Gonna be an interesting accident report though. Boeing sure didn’t need this.

    Alan, you have issues, you should work on those. Get off Q anon dude, it’s a cult, a very weird one.

Comments are closed.