Chinese authorities have released their initial report into the China Eastern Airlines MU5735 crash that left 132 people dead. While offering few fresh details, the report summarizes the timeline of events on the doomed flight, the point of last contact and the state of play regarding data retrieval from the plane’s black boxes.
Here’s the initial report in full:
On March 21, 2022, the Boeing 737-800 B-1791 of China Eastern Airlines Yunnan Co., Ltd. was carrying out the MU5735 Kunming-Guangzhou flight. When cruising in the Guangzhou control area, the cruising altitude of the route dropped rapidly from 8,900 meters, and finally crashed near Molang Village, Langnan Town, Teng County, Wuzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The plane disintegrated after hitting the ground, killing all 123 passengers and nine crew members on board.
According to the provisions of the “Convention on International Civil Aviation,” within 30 days from the date of the accident, the investigating organization must send the investigation preliminary report, which usually includes factual information currently obtained, while not including cause analysis and conclusion of the accident, to ICAO and countries participating in the investigation. At present, the “3.21” China Eastern Airlines MU5735 Aircraft Flight Accident Investigation Preliminary Report has been completed. The report mainly includes factual information such as flight history, crew and maintenance personnel, airworthiness maintenance, and wreckage distribution. The main situations are as follows:
The aircraft took off from Runway 21 of Kunming Changshui Airport at 13:16 Beijing time, rose to a cruising altitude of 8,900 meters at 13:27, entered the Guangzhou control area along the A599 route at 14:17, and at 14:20:55 Guangzhou area control radar showed a “deviation command altitude” warning. The aircraft left the cruise altitude, the controller called the crew immediately but received no reply. At 14:21:40, the last recorded aircraft information by the radar was: standard pressure altitude of 3,380 meters, ground speed of 1,010 km/h, and heading of 117 degrees. Subsequently, the radar signal disappeared.
The accident scene is located in a valley running from southeast to northwest near Molang Village, Langnan Town, Teng County, Wuzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. A crater with an area of about 45 square meters and a depth of 2.7 meters can be seen at the scene, which was determined to be the main crash point, located at 23°19′25.52″ north latitude and 111°06′44.30″ east longitude. The debris of the aircraft wreckage was mainly found on the ground and underground in the azimuth range from 0° to 150° of the crash point. The trailing edge of the right wingtip winglet was found approximately 12 kilometers from the main crash point. There were traces of fire in the forest vegetation at the scene of the accident. Major wreckage including horizontal stabilizer, vertical tail, rudder, left and right engines, left and right wings, fuselage parts, landing gear and cockpit parts were found at the scene.
After all the wreckage was searched and collected from the scene, it was uniformly transported to a special warehouse for cleaning and identification, and placed according to the actual size and position of the aircraft for subsequent inspection and analysis use.
After investigation, the qualifications of the flight crew, cabin crew and maintenance release personnel meet the requirements; the airworthiness certificate of the aircraft in the accident is valid; there is no fault report and no fault reservation before the flight and short-term parking on the same day; there is no cargo declared as dangerous goods on the plane; the navigation and monitoring facilities and equipment along the route involved in this flight are not abnormal, and there is no dangerous weather forecast.
When deviating from the cruising altitude previously, the radio communication and control command between the crew and the air traffic control department were not abnormal, and the last normal land-air call was at 14:16. The two recorders on the aircraft were severely damaged due to the crash, and the data restoration and analysis work is still in progress.
Going forward, the technical investigation team will continue to carry out in-depth investigations such as wreck identification, classification and inspection, flight data analysis, and necessary experimental verification in accordance with relevant procedures, and scientifically and rigorously identify the cause of the accident.
