A Wall Street Journal report published on Tuesday (17) states that information in the black box of the China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed in March suggests that the incident occurred intentionally and, therefore, without failure of the aircraft. At the time, all 132 people on board died.
Although it has not yet been possible to conclude what actually happened, people who had access to a preliminary assessment of the case, made by US authorities, since the aircraft is manufactured by the American Boeing, suspect that someone inside the cabin had downed the aircraft. A source heard by Reuters reiterated the line of reasoning and dismissed indications of technical errors.
Also according to a person with knowledge of the assessment, the Chinese authorities leading the investigation have so far not pointed out any mechanical failures in the aircraft. Thus, the information gathered led, according to the American newspaper, to US investigators to focus their efforts on the pilot’s actions – there is also the possibility that another person on the plane invaded the cabin and caused the accident, thus taking away crew responsibility.
Asked about the possibility of an intrusion, China Eastern said such a scenario was not plausible. The airline cited information from a March 25 press conference in which Chinese officials said no emergency codes had been sent from the plane before the crash.
The flight, which departed the city of Kunming on March 21, was supposed to land in Guangzhou about two hours later, but communication with the aircraft was lost just over an hour after taking off.
At one point, according to a flight monitoring website, the plane plummeted from a height of 29,100 feet (8,900 meters) to 9,075 feet (2,700 meters). It then fell again, at an altitude of 3,225 feet (about 983 meters) with a speed of 700 km/h until it crashed. Video posted on social media shows what Boeing would look like in an accelerated fall at an almost vertical tilt angle.
After a month-long suspension, the use of Boeing 737-800 planes – the model of the aircraft involved in the accident – was resumed in April by China Eastern. At the time, a preliminary Chinese report also did not point out technical problems with the aircraft, which has been in service since 1997 and has a good safety record. There was also no mention of possible cloudiness capable of impairing the visibility of the pilots.
The model is the predecessor of the 737 MAX, suspended in China for more than three years after accidents in Indonesia and Ethiopia. The investigations were aided by the US National Transportation Safety Board, which helped review the flight data log and the cockpit voice recorder.
At the time of the accident, the pilots would not have responded to the contacts of the flight controllers once the first change in the route was identified. According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the last regular call between controllers and the aircraft took place at 2:16 pm local time.
Less than five minutes later, the plane began to lose altitude. Air traffic control tried to establish contact, but there was no response. The safety record of the Chinese airline industry has been among the best in the world over the past decade, but experts point to a lack of transparency in Chinese aviation, so minor incidents may be being underreported.
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