Vertical descent at 550 km/h

A devastating dive at over 10 times the normal speed. due to massive failure, error, or suicidal action by the pilots, the Boeing A 737-800 of the state-owned China Eastern Airlines turned into a missile landing in the Guangxi Mountains in China the South. There is no escape for the 123 passengers, the two pilots, the seven flight attendants and the flight attendants of MU5735 (all Chinese), which took off yesterday at 5.20 from Kunming and headed to Guangzhou where it was expected at 8.35 am Italian time (3.35 pm local time). Four or five tons of fuel then burning hectares of timber.

China, plane crash, 132 dead: pilot failed or voluntary gesture. There are no aliens on board, and the company has left all 102 Boeings on the ground

But what caused that vertical dive of 8 km, during which the plane reached a frightening speed of 550 km per hour? L ‘airport From a Chinese company built in the USA online only since 2015 and is one of more than 5 thousand models of this type that have been sold worldwide by Boeing since 1997 for short and medium routes. And he’s not part of the new generation of 737-Max planes that are already championing the tragedies of Ethiopians and Indonesia: the documentary The Fall of Boeing (Netflix) robs us of sleep while rebuilding responsibilities – admitted – for the American giant.

Video
When this dive began, the 189-seat twin-engine 737-800 (economy class only) jetliner had been flying for an hour and was about 9,000 meters above sea level at a cruising speed (800 km/h): from there to landing ( Final) to Guangzhou will start soon. In a video captured by the Chenfa mining company’s camera, the plane can be seen in the latter part of the fall: an unrecoverable 90-degree dive. Speed ​​and altitude data were recorded from Flightradar24. The plane, which appears intact and not on fire, is at this point brick-like, has no lift, and the fall is not slowed down by deliberate trajectories or by loss of control. The Boeing, which weighs 41 tons empty, does not rotate, does not slip and does not deflect. In just over two minutes, it loses 8 thousand meters of altitude and crashes into the high hills, in that region, at an altitude of one thousand meters. At the moment there are no known pilots on May days. Not even bad weather. However, an aircraft can reach its destination even with only one engine. Do both Cfm International jet turbine engines fail?

From this altitude, you can set up a long trail in hopes of finding one not too far. Or, at any rate, a space for a desperate emergency landing experience. Control system error? Explosion in the cockpit? From the video, the aircraft appears intact, the tail may be missing, torn off at speed. So, a rare and instant cabin decompression that disables the pilots? Or an incorrect maneuver by the pilots that caused a stop (sudden loss of speed)? Something unusual at this point in the flight: the plane was flattened and the pilots trained to regain control even from high altitudes. Of course, if you do not connect quickly, the consequences can be fatal.

Investigation
Finally, the pilot who wants to finish it off (remember the cases of Germanwings in 2015 and SilkAir in 1997?) who’s pointing their nose toward the ground without giving the co-pilot time to intervene? Meanwhile, China Eastern has grounded another 102 Boeing 737-800s, while the American company is rocking orders for a modified 737-Max. The recovery of the black boxes will be the first step in the investigation, with the Chinese authorities being pursued by President Xi Jinping himself who received the solidarity of President Mattarella and also from his friend Putin: China’s image cannot be tainted by these tragedies and an official truth must be found.