In March 2022, a China Eastern Boeing 737 operating a domestic flight in China crashed shortly before starting its descent, killing all 132 people onboard. This was an unfathomable accident, as the plane suddenly entered a nosedive, even though investigators agreed that nothing was found to be wrong with the aircraft.
Continue reading: NTSB Leak: China Eastern 737 Crashed After Both Engines Were Shut Off Inflight
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
The moral of the story: companies treating older employees badly can cost lives. Sadly, not the lives of the makers of bad decisions.
There have been suggestions here previously that technology would not make it fairly easy to transmit CVR and FDR live and stored off-aircraft
Pilots have been identified as hostile to the idea, but presumably so are certian governments.
How much detail can be deduced from the continuous transmission that the engine manufacturers/servicers already receive?
CVRs work pretty well for accidents that occur on land and that was the case here.
CVR and FDR don't work when a plane plunges into the ocean and is unrecoverable.
the CVR and presumably FDR did their job here.
This wasn't an accident and Ben's information - if it is correct - explains why what he suggests happens likely did and why China doesn't want to make it public any more than India or Egypt do.
Um, that's a strange place to put moral culpability, especially since you (and I) have no idea whether he was a good employee or not.
Another incident could have been avoided if the rule of having at least 2 person in the cockpit is enforced.
Is it not good that we have the NTSB? And, that it participates in non-US investigations? Why would any administration want to downsize or eliminate it?
Sounds to me like he was a liability. Troubles with simulator checks, demoted from Captain at least once... The real question is how this guy was still flying when he was clearly incompetent, and clearly unhinged. But yeah, go ahead and look for a reason why he was oppressed and discriminated-against. That's bound to be the explanation.
What a sad and terrifying ordeal for the passengers and FA’s made even worse given it was a deliberate act.
Seems to reinforce the US airlines requirement for always having two people in the cockpit at all times. While intentional downing is thankfully extremely rare, it seems the “cost” of always having two people in the cockpit (zero?) would make this a simple solution that all airlines should follow at all times. But, maybe there is something I am missing.
That one is more even obvious, due to the other pilot managing to temporarily recover the aircraft.
You know there is a better way to prevent pilot deliberately crash planes.
Remove the human pilots from the controls.
Because sometimes an error is consequential enough it changes the narrative.
For example if you humanly confuse Civil Aviation Administration of China with Freedom of Information Act you will get some very confusing story.
Everyone except EgyptAir and the Egyptian government thinks the suicide explanation is self-evident.
Possibly. The second person, however, would be a flight attendant. Would a FA know what the pilot was doing when he flipped those switches? Very unlikely.
Um a “simulator ride” is an attraction at an amusement park - ( probably Disneyworld in Florida perhaps) A pilot attends “sim training” or simulator training - please don’t diminish this by using incorrect language
Coincidentally a new documentary just aired here in U.K. looking at the Germanwings FO ‘suicide’ crash into the French Alps en route to Dusseldorf.
The French BEA investigation concluded deliberate action by the FO was the primary cause but his family counter that with known instances of crew-disabling or impairing cockpit fumes, known instances of a flight computer suddenly altering autopilot height setting to 100ft in less time than a human pilot can twist the knob, and known instances of the cockpit door access keypad failing - on the crash plane the ‘2’ button wasn’t working.
The retrieval of the Air France recorders from the depths of the mid-Atlantic gives some hope the MH370 black boxes may one day be located and recovered, perhaps giving closure to friends and relatives of the victims.
Maybe not, but possible the FA could unlock the door to let the pilot back in and others to help disable the co-pilot. It might not have helped, but it also might have...It absolutely would NOT have hurt.
Misleading title. A FOIA-requested document is NOT the same as a Leak, which is unauthorized.
If a pilot wants to down an aircraft when the captain is in the bathroom, no 27 year old FA with zero flight training is going to be able to stop him.
No, but that flight attendant can open the flight deck door and let others in,
Not only that, but "plane crash" isn't typically on anyone's shortlist of "best ways to take your own life."
There is a jump seat in the simulator.
A pilot or anyone can sit on it while not being part of the simulation. That's literally a "simulator ride".
Please don't diminish your intelligence by being a smart a**.
Perhaps look at the true meaning -dumbing down the language may be your thing not mine
Ahhh yes, good old “aerotoxicity”, a sham diagnosis up there with chronic Lyme disease and electromagnetic sensitivity. I also don’t buy the malfunctioning autopilot theory - a competent A320 pilot would have been able to diagnose the problem and rectify it long before ground contact. Unfortunately the FOs family still haven’t accepted the stark reality that their son and brother was a mentally unstable mass murderer. A “documentary” proves nothing. Just ask Woody Allen or Derek Chauvin.
Nothing to do with the simulator. Did you read the entire story?
It’s the parent company mistreated its subsidiary employees, even the pilots. And he’s losing tons of money due to Evergrande Group collapsing at the same time. Both contributed to his suicide. Otherwise, he was supposed to retire in 2022.
No fan of CCP or corruption. And, we've got a broader mental health problem in the industry here, as with Germanwings, Malaysia, Egypt, Silk, Air India, etc.
This article seems to blame the lack of information being available but there are many incidents around the world where local authorities do not expose information or details.