Jet crash that killed 132 may have been deliberate, flight data shows
Investigators are examining whether a jet was deliberately crashed into a mountain in China in March, killing all 132 people on board.
There was no evidence of malfunction that could have caused mainland China’s worst aviation disaster for 28 years.
Flight data from one of the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800’s black boxes indicated that someone in the cockpit deliberately crashed the plane, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
The aircraft, flying from Kunming, crashed on March 21 in the mountains of the Guangxi region, after a sudden plunge from cruising altitude, killing all 123 passengers and nine crew members.
The pilots did not respond to calls from air-traffic controllers and nearby planes during the plunge, authorities said.
Speculation on the internet about a deliberate crash had “interfered with the accident investigation work”, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said last month.
China Eastern said no evidence had emerged that could determine whether there were any problems with the aircraft, the newspaper reported.
The 737-800 is a widely flown predecessor to Boeing’s 737 Max but does not have the systems that were linked to fatal 737-Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, which led to a lengthy grounding of the Max.
In a summary of an unpublished preliminary crash report last month, Chinese investigators did not point to any technical recommendations for the 737-800, which has been in service since 1997 with a strong safety record.
A final report into the causes of the disaster could take two years or more to compile, Chinese officials said.
Analysts say most crashes are caused by a combination of human and technical factors.
Deliberate crashes are exceptionally rare.
Experts said the latest hypothesis left open whether the action stemmed from one pilot acting alone or a struggle or cockpit intrusion. Sources said that nothing had been confirmed.
The cockpit voice recorder was damaged during the crash and it is unclear whether investigators have been able to retrieve any information from it.