JET RIDDLE
Boeing 737 black box ‘severely damaged’ after jet ‘nosedived near sound barrier at 700mph and evaporated into a crater’
A BLACK box from the Boeing 737 that crashed in China has been found "severely damaged" after the jet reportedly "evaporated" into a crater at 700mph.
The black box is so damaged that investigators can't tell whether it's the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder - and it's not known if the authorities will be able to retrieve the data.
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Finding the black boxes will be the key to finding out what caused the China Eastern Airlines passenger jet to suddenly dive and crash into a mountain in southern China on Monday.
Black boxes are understood to be able to withstand an impact of 310mph - but the plane nearly broke the sound barrier moments before it slammed into the hillside.
The jet was reportedly travelling at more than 640mph - and at times may have exceeded 700mph, according to data from Flightradar24.
Sound travels at 761mph at sea level - but slows with altitude as air temperature goes down and is about 663mph at 35,000ft.
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John Hansman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology astronautics and aeronautics professor, told : "The preliminary data indicate it was near the speed of sound. It was coming down steep."
The speed of the impact might have obliterated evidence and data from the black boxes - making it harder for investigators to unlock the mysterious cause of the disaster.
Bob Mann, president of R.W. Mann & Co. consultancy, said: "It was an exceedingly high-energy crash. It looks like it literally evaporated into a crater."
Investigators are still searching for the second black box in the debris strewn across the mountainside, China's Civil Aviation Authority said.
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Earlier, investigators used hand tools, drones and sniffer dogs under rainy conditions to comb the heavily forested slopes for the two black boxes - as well as any human remains.
Crews also pumped water from the pit created when the plane hit the ground - but the work was suspended in the morning due to the risk of landslides.
Horrifying footage showed the Boeing 737 jet's final seconds after it plunged 100ft in around minute and a half.
The passenger jet crashed in Guangxi as it was heading to Guangzhou from Kunming with nine crew members and 123 passengers on board.
The six-year-old 737 came down near the city of Wuzhou and sparked a wildfire on the mountain.
Rescuers raced to the scene and found debris strewn over a large area with no evidence of survivors.
Harrowing images showed large pieces of the jet scattered on the ground, with mud-stained wallets, bank and identity cards recovered.
The China Eastern flight departed at 1:11 pm (0511 GMT), FlightRadar24 data showed and had been due to land at 3:05 p.m. (0705 GMT).
Flight-tracking said the descent started between 06:20:43 and 06:20:59 from an altitude of 30,000 feet.
The plane is understood to have then dropped to just 7,400 feet in a matter of minutes before pulling up - climbing 1,200 feet.
It then nosedived and smashed into the ground.
EXPERTS BAFFLED
Experts are baffled by the crash - and investigators said it is too early to speculate on the cause.
An air-traffic controller tried to contact the pilots several times after seeing the planes altitude drop sharply, but didn't get any reply, Zhu Tao, director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the Civil Aviation Authority of China, said.
Crashes during the cruise phase of flight are relatively rare even though it accounts for the majority of flight time.
"Usually the plane is on auto-pilot during cruise stage. So it is very hard to fathom what happened," said Li Xiaojin, a Chinese aviation expert.
They added: "From a technical point of view, something like this should not have happened."
While aviation expert Arthur Rowe said: “It looks most likely a loss of control event, possibly following a high altitude stall of the aircraft.
“There are multiple possible causes. Jammed or unresponsive control surfaces, especially on the tail are one.
“An inappropriate combination of autopilot settings is another.
“Sabotage - that's probably unlikely on a domestic Chinese flight given the Covid restrictions on entering the country.
“It's unlikely to be engine related as aircraft can fly perfectly well with no engine power - for a limited time.”
Engineering professor Tao Yang of Nottingham University, said: “The plane was completely out of control and at this stage it is very difficult to say what has happened.”
The plane stopped transmitting data just southwest of the Chinese city of Wuzhou.
'OUT OF CONTROL'
A villager surnamed Liu told state-run China News Service that he had driven a motorbike to the scene after hearing a loud explosion.
He said he saw debris on the ground, including an aircraft wing and fragments of clothing hanging from trees.
The website of China Eastern Airlines was later presented in black and white, which airlines do in response to a crash as a sign of respect for the assumed victims.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said he was "shocked" by the crash and called for an investigation into the accident, state media reported.
"We are shocked to learn of the China Eastern MU5735 accident," he said according to broadcaster CCTV, while he also called for "all efforts" towards the rescue and to find out the "cause of the accident as soon as possible".
The aircraft was delivered to China Eastern from Boeing in June 2015 and had been flying for over six years.
The 737-800 model that crashed on Monday has a good safety record and is the predecessor to the 737 MAX model that has been grounded in China for more than three years following fatal crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia that killed 346 people.
The Boeing 737 Max back in 2020 after a 20-month safety ban was lifted following the crashes.
The safety record of China's airline industry has been among the best in the world over the past decade.
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According to Aviation Safety Network, China's last fatal jet accident was in 2010, when 44 of 96 people on board were killed when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed on approach to Yichun airport in low visibility.
In 1994, a China Northwest Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 flying from Xian to Guangzhou was destroyed in an accident after take off, killing all 160 people on board and ranking as China's worst-ever air disaster, according to Aviation Safety Network.
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