Boeing 737 down in China...

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barkingmad
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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#21 Post by barkingmad » Wed Mar 23, 2022 8:57 am

John asks: “Would it even be possible for a suicidal pilot to keep it in the dive?”

Dunno, I’ve never tried it, even in the simulator, despite my posting moniker.

But the tailplane/stabiliser is very effective when motored to extreme limits so if that had been moved to fully aircraft nose-down trim position it would have reduced the physical effort required.

Next problem is the speed at which the structure starts to disintegrate with flight loads, somewhere above the placarded never-exceed speed, but impact possibly occurred before inflight breakup.

Although some have questioned the apparent lack of fin/rudder in that grainy photo which is allegedly the last seconds of the event. :-?

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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#22 Post by Ex-Ascot » Wed Mar 23, 2022 9:47 am

FDR found.
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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#23 Post by Alisoncc » Wed Mar 23, 2022 1:52 pm

Mao Yanfeng, an official at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said due to the severe damage inflicted by the crash it was still “unclear whether it is a data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder”.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/pilot ... 5a77w.html
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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#24 Post by Alisoncc » Wed Mar 23, 2022 7:23 pm

In a third press conference the CAAC reported although the black box is badly damaged, the storage unit looks intact and has been determined as the Cockpit Voice Recorder CVR. It has been sent to Beijing for download and decoding. The second officer was an observer to increase experience.
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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#25 Post by Alisoncc » Thu Mar 24, 2022 10:36 am

On Mar 24th 2022 the CAAC reported in their 4th press conference, that a large piece of debris (1.3 meters by 0.1 meters) from the aircraft was found 10km away from the crash site (it needs to be pointed out, we don't know whether this separated before or after the dive at this time). The main debris at the crash site otherwise is confined within 30 meters radius, 20 meters deep. At this time it is not yet clear whether the data of the already recovered black box can be read out, there is damage to the storage unit.
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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#26 Post by PHXPhlyer » Thu Mar 24, 2022 2:55 pm

Searchers in China find wing, engine parts after plane crash
No survivors have been found since the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 dived into a mountainous area Monday during a domestic flight, but authorities say they still are looking.


See website for pics.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/sear ... -rcna21341

Hundreds of people in rain gear and rubber boots searched muddy, forested hills in southern China on Thursday for the second flight recorder from a jetliner that crashed with 132 people aboard.

No survivors have been found since the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 dived into a mountainous area Monday during a domestic flight, but authorities say they still are looking.

Some human remains and engine parts were found, as well as items from the cockpit and some belongings to passengers, officials said. State TV showed searchers on a denuded slope trying to dislodge a white wing section with the airline’s red-and-blue logo.

One of two black box recorders, believed to be the cockpit voice recorder, was found Wednesday. Its outer casing was damaged but the orange cylinder was relatively intact, investigators said.

China Eastern, one of China’s four major airlines, said Thursday the Shanghai-based carrier and its subsidiaries have grounded a total of 223 Boeing 737-800 aircraft while they investigate possible safety hazards.

China Eastern earlier said the grounding of planes was a precaution, not a sign there was anything wrong. The airline has said the plane that crashed was in good condition and its flight crew was experienced and in good health.

The plane that crashed was flying from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in China’s mountainous southwest, to Guangzhou, a major city and export manufacturing hub in the southeast. Authorities say there were no foreign passengers aboard.

Investigators have said it is too early to discuss possible causes. An air traffic controller tried to contact the pilots several times after seeing the plane’s altitude drop sharply but got no reply, officials have said.

The government has yet to release the pilots’ names, but news reports identified the captain as Yang Hongda. The co-pilot, according to news reports, was Zhang Zheng, a veteran with 32,000 hours of flying time in a 30-year career.


An unidentified former colleague of Zhang cited by the online news outlet The Paper said he was a mentor to young pilots who had a “sunny disposition” and captained the air academy’s basketball team.

A second co-pilot, Ni Gongtao, was flying with them to gain experience, according to news reports.

On Thursday, pumps were being used to drain a pit at the center of the crash site as light rain hampered work for a second day.

“The rainstorm made the job harder,” said Zheng Xi, fire chief of the Guangxi region, at a news conference. Zheng said muddy roads were so hard to get through that some searchers walked to the site carrying tools and other equipment.

More than 300 searchers were taking part, said Huang Shangwu, a deputy fire chief.

“The water pumping yesterday greatly contributed to the finding of the black box,” Huang told reporters at a command center near the crash site.

The Boeing 737-800 was cruising at 29,000 feet (8,800 meters) when it crashed, starting a fire that could be seen in NASA satellite images.

The government has sealed off a large area around the crash site and tried to control information about the disaster.

Foreign media were escorted into the zone for the first time Thursday. Police and other vehicles were parked along the highway. Journalists were driven down small roads covered in red-brown mud to the command center.

When they passed a woman in tears who was being led away, security officials used open umbrellas to try to block the journalists from filming from their vehicles.

Searchers have been using hand tools, metal detectors, drones and sniffer dogs to comb the heavily forested and steep slopes. Wallets, identity and bank cards and human remains have been found.

The “black boxes,” usually painted orange so they can be easily found, are considered key to figuring out what caused the crash.

Cockpit voice recorders can capture voices, audio alerts and background sounds from the engine or switches being moved. The flight data recorder stores information about speed, altitude and direction, as well as pilot actions and performance of important systems.

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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#27 Post by ribrash » Thu Mar 24, 2022 5:34 pm

30 mts wide by 20 mts deep. I would,nt expect to find any thing other than gloop.

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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#28 Post by Boac » Thu Mar 24, 2022 6:16 pm

Nah, there'll be loads of body bits, sadly.

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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#29 Post by FD2 » Thu Mar 24, 2022 7:03 pm

BBC latest - they report there's still no sign of survivors. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-60856854

Is this supposed to try and reassure the relatives that there's still some hope? Perhaps it might have been 'cruel but kind' to say at the start that there was no hope at all.

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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#30 Post by tango15 » Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:16 pm

FD2 wrote:
Thu Mar 24, 2022 7:03 pm
BBC latest - they report there's still no sign of survivors. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-60856854

Is this supposed to try and reassure the relatives that there's still some hope? Perhaps it might have been 'cruel but kind' to say at the start that there was no hope at all.
You'd think so, wouldn't you, but I think it's something to do with the Chinese mindset. Long after the rest of the world had decided that those unfortunate enough to be on board MH 370 had perished, they were still asking for updates on their relatives.

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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#31 Post by Alisoncc » Fri Mar 25, 2022 11:28 am

On Mar 25th 2022 the CAAC reported in the 5th press conference, that the gear box of an engine as well as the main landing gear have been found and recovered. Some of the aircraft parts showed traces of fire. The CVR's memory chip is damaged and needs to be sent to the chip manufacturer for repair according to recommendation by the manufacturer. At this time there are no time estimates of when the data can be downloaded.
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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#32 Post by FD2 » Sat Mar 26, 2022 4:42 am

If this is accurate/true then a breakup in the cruise may have occurred, which led to the dive, but these parts may also have fallen off after the dive started if the airframe was subjected to enough stress. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... d-132.html

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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#33 Post by Ex-Ascot » Sat Mar 26, 2022 11:02 am

FD2 wrote:
Sat Mar 26, 2022 4:42 am
If this is accurate/true then a breakup in the cruise may have occurred, which led to the dive, but these parts may also have fallen off after the dive started if the airframe was subjected to enough stress. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... d-132.html
Coming down in a vertical dive from 29,000' they must have exceeded Vne. Bits would have started falling off. It doesn't say if the bits found were along the flight path. If they came off during the dive they could have been blown by the wind to their place of discovery.
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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#34 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sat Mar 26, 2022 11:05 am

Apparently a large piece of engine debris has been found some 10 kilometers from where the main impact occurred...

https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/eng ... 30.article

Aircraft components from the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 that crashed in central China have been found more than 10km away from where the aircraft is said to have gone down, say investigators on the third day of search and rescue operations.

The update, disclosed at a daily press conference, comes as recovery teams begin locating larger aircraft parts, including what is believed to be an engine component.

Video footage from state broadcaster CCTV shows recovery crew pulling a large component from muddied ground, near the site where the twinjet crashed. CCTV states that the part “is suspected to be from the aircraft engines”, but did not elaborate further.
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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#35 Post by Alisoncc » Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:39 am

On Mar 27th 2022 the CAAC reported the second black box (FDR) has been found and recovered, it was found about 1.5 meters below the surface at the eastern side of the main crash site (on the steep hillside between the two crash sites).
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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#36 Post by Boac » Sun Mar 27, 2022 1:41 pm

mWpCN2Zi.jpg
mWpCN2Zi.jpg (27.21 KiB) Viewed 364 times
This is said to be a pic of same. Considering it rammed into the ground at high speed, it shows remarkably little damage. Hopefully hopeful!

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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#37 Post by Boac » Wed Apr 20, 2022 6:30 pm

Latest news from the Chinese is that the trailing edge of the right wingtip winglet was found approximately 12 kilometers from the main impact point.

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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#38 Post by PHXPhlyer » Wed Apr 20, 2022 6:38 pm

China says black boxes from crashed plane were ‘severely damaged’
The country’s aviation authority said it was still recovering and analyzing the data to help determine the cause of the March crash that killed 132 people.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/chin ... -rcna25128

BEIJING — China’s aviation authority said on Wednesday the black boxes of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 jet that crashed last month were “severely damaged” and it was still recovering and analyzing the data to help determine the cause.

In a statement regarding its preliminary report into the crash that killed 132 people, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) did not make public any information from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder that were sent to Washington for analysis.

CAAC said the flight crew were qualified, the jet was properly maintained and the weather was fine when flight MU5735, which was en route from Kunming to Guangzhou, plunged from cruising altitude and crashed in the mountains of Guangxi on March 21.

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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#39 Post by Boac » Tue May 17, 2022 6:42 pm


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Re: Boeing 737 down in China...

#40 Post by Ex-Ascot » Wed May 18, 2022 8:23 am

All they have to find out now is which bastard did it.
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