China Eastern 737 crash

Agree many years ago there was speculation that this type of nose dive was the same way the aircraft that Payne Stuart was travelling on hit the ground. No survivors and disintegrated on impact.
Nose dive. As opposed to a tail dive I suppose. If you drive into the ground at 400 knots and any sort of angle, you'll get disintegration of the aircraft.
 
I have my doubts about the video. It looks very much like one of the crash of a Long March booster from a couple of years ago.
Yep- I wouldn't count on this video being from the specific incident either. Also doesn't look like the kind of area where people would scan the mountain tops with their cameras and then suddenly, woops, an aircraft plummets out of the sky. Actually, quite an unlikely scenario pretty much anywhere, thinking of it.
 
I thought that video had already been verified by the said local business and state media?, it was CCTV, not someone standing around waiting for a plane to fall from the heavens.
 
Sponsored Post

Struggling to use your Frequent Flyer Points?

Frequent Flyer Concierge takes the hard work out of finding award availability and redeeming your frequent flyer or credit card points for flights.

Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, the Frequent Flyer Concierge team at Frequent Flyer Concierge will help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

Yep- I wouldn't count on this video being from the specific incident either. Also doesn't look like the kind of area where people would scan the mountain tops with their cameras and then suddenly, woops, an aircraft plummets out of the sky. Actually, quite an unlikely scenario pretty much anywhere, thinking of it.
I think you forgot this is China we're talking about
 
Yep- I wouldn't count on this video being from the specific incident either. Also doesn't look like the kind of area where people would scan the mountain tops with their cameras and then suddenly, woops, an aircraft plummets out of the sky. Actually, quite an unlikely scenario pretty much anywhere, thinking of it.
Not relevant to this, but that's pretty much what happened in Iran some years ago. An F-4 was being filmed from a C130, and an IL76 spins into the background and crashes. Of relevance to this though, is that it gives some idea of what a spinning, breaking up aircraft, looks like...and it just isn't what we saw from China.

 
This is not a theory about what happened. Reading various articles about this crash, I've seen a number of commentators who are claiming that it's not possible for a 737 to be held in a near vertical dive. The reason behind their claims generally relate to them pushing a trim issue, or pilot suicide. They never seem to have much in the way of aviation credentials other than being a newspaper's "aviation expert".

I suspect the rationale behind the claim is that as an aircraft accelerates, and of course it does so very rapidly in a steep dive, you will invariably have a strong pitch up effect caused by the increased lift from the wing. So, as a pilot, you need to be trimming nose down and pushing forward. Aircaft are inherently stable, and this behaviour is part of that stability. But, if you were to roll the aircraft onto its back, simultaneously letting the nose slice down, you'd end up inverted at (say) 40º nose low. Now, as the aircraft accelerates, that same effect will come into play and the nose will pitch up. But, remember this is the aircraft's local version of up, and it has nothing to do with the ground. It will actually be making the dive even steeper. Now, we're getting very nose low, accelerating like a cut cat, and we'll rapidly be into transonic behaviour. Now the wing, and even more importantly the tail, will only be able to make a fraction (perhaps half) of the lift they could make at lower mach numbers. The centre of pressure will move aft, giving a nose down couple. The aircraft is essentially unrecoverable at this point.

Nothing that I have seen gives me any idea of what really happened to this aircraft.
 
Leads to… human intervention .. again ?
How else would it roll into an unrecoverable locked down position.
I have seen a number of previous clips of stalled aircraft and they all seem to adopt an oscillating falling leaf style.
A spin is quite regular and I guess thats why it is recoverable.
 
Leads to… human intervention .. again ?
How else would it roll into an unrecoverable locked down position.
Over the years, many aircraft have been unintentionally rolled inverted. For it to be unrecoverable you simply need to get into the transonic regime whilst nose low. Given that aircraft cruise at mach .8 or so, none of them are operating with a large margin to the start of the region, which starts below mach 1. How far, and how bad the effects, vary.
I have seen a number of previous clips of stalled aircraft and they all seem to adopt an oscillating falling leaf style.
A spin is quite regular and I guess thats why it is recoverable.
Which is a spin in your grandfather’s Tiger Moth. In a swept wing aircraft they are violent, oscillatory, and can generate rates of descent well over 30,000 feet per minute. Quite a few aircraft have spin modes that are themselves irrecoverable.

Anyway, this is not a theory about this accident. It’s a comment about the accuracy of some media commentators.
 
Last edited:
Try this then


Or this


More fake news?

 
Last edited:
Try this then


Or this


More fake news?

Sorry what is your point? That's all the same evidence and same claims from presumably the same quoted passenger?
 
Its looking like it was a deliberate act by the pilot on intruder.

Maybe. I'd like to see the flight recorder control inputs before making any sort of conclusion. The comments re 'did what it was told' seems to imply use of the autopilot, not actually piloting it, and the a/p flight regime is quite limited, and goes nowhere near far enough to get the outcome seen. Mind you, Boeing would breathe a sigh of relief.
 
Maybe. I'd like to see the flight recorder control inputs before making any sort of conclusion. The comments re 'did what it was told' seems to imply use of the autopilot, not actually piloting it, and the a/p flight regime is quite limited, and goes nowhere near far enough to get the outcome seen. Mind you, Boeing would breathe a sigh of relief.
Agree it’s a bit ambiguous… from a lay perspective ‘doing what it’s told’ to me meant it was doing what someone at the controls intended it to do. Which i took to mean putting it in a [deep] dive.
 
Though one of the initial articles on this that I read did quote a former NTSB investigator who was quoted as saying it just looks like the Silk air 185 crash in Indonesia.
 
The Frequent Flyer Concierge team takes the hard work out of finding reward seat availability. Using their expert knowledge and specialised tools, they'll help you book a great trip that maximises the value for your points.

AFF Supporters can remove this and all advertisements

Enhance your AFF viewing experience!!

From just $6 we'll remove all advertisements so that you can enjoy a cleaner and uninterupted viewing experience.

And you'll be supporting us so that we can continue to provide this valuable resource :)


Sample AFF with no advertisements? More..
Back
Top