Boeing 737 Crash in China 2022_03_21

[rainier]

2) a horizontal stabilizer is required to maintain a vertical dive (if the wings are still attached) - without the stabilizer it would tumble.

Pretty sure a swept wing will be stable in a vertical dive. Also some of the stabilizer will likely still be present. COG will be even more forward due to loss of mass far back on the fuselage. Lawn dart comes to mind...

[GRAHAMW]

China Eastern Airlines grounds 223 Boeing 737-800 aircraft after crash

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/24/busi ... ium=social

[Raffles]

Update from AvHerald https://avherald.com/h?article=4f64be2f&opt=0

On Mar 25th 2022 the CAAC reported in the 5th press conference, that the gear box of an engine as well as the main landing gear have been found and recovered. Some of the aircraft parts showed traces of fire. The CVR's memory chip is damaged and needs to be sent to the chip manufacturer for repair according to recommendation by the manufacturer. At this time there are no time estimates of when the data can be downloaded.

However someone made the following comment

CAAC's press conference did not confirm that the CVR's memory chip was damaged. According to the conference recording, the question asked was "Is it true that decoding the black box data would take 10 to 15 days?"

The answer was that there were three conditions a black box can be found after a plane crash: (1) No damage to the black box; (2) Damage to black box casing but no damage to the memory chips; and (3) Damage to black box and memory chips. He mentioned that in the third case, the manufacturer would recommend sending the memory chips back for repair.

Finally he said that therefore, the time needed for data analysis cannot be determined at this time, because it would vary based on the condition of the recorders (which implies they are not certain of the CVR memory chip condition as of now).

In summary, the press conferences only confirmed damage to the CVR casing. They did not confirm the condition of the memory chips.

Adding to my previous comment:

Some websites posted excerpts of the press conference that only covered the 3rd possibility, which made it look like the memory chip was damaged. However this was not confirmed in the press conference.

I am a native Chinese speaker and I watched the press conference video.

[MadMacs]

There is the Possibility of the aircraft being shot down by a missile. Could also explain the sudden dive.
The missiles would be heat seeking at close proximity and would then take out the wing…

Would the aircraft not then dive in flames?

Could well be, yes.
Another scenario could be a failure or seperation of the horizontal stabilizer. I hope they release the DFDR data so we can finally get closer to what happened.

Do you remember that JAL B747 that had the aft pressure bulkhead fail and blow the tail off?

[Pitot]

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... WfZuJjHXIM

[Vlerkies]

The Swift Air 737 flight loosing part of it's dorsal and damaging the elevators came to mind when I saw this.
https://avcom.co.za/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=230047

[Globemaster]

There is the Possibility of the aircraft being shot down by a missile. Could also explain the sudden dive.
The missiles would be heat seeking at close proximity and would then take out the wing…

At that altitude it's out of range for an Igla/stinger. Would have to be a proper SAM system

Cool, thank you for the insight.

[Globemaster]

Would the aircraft not then dive in flames?

Could well be, yes.
Another scenario could be a failure or seperation of the horizontal stabilizer. I hope they release the DFDR data so we can finally get closer to what happened.

Do you remember that JAL B747 that had the aft pressure bulkhead fail and blow the tail off?

JAL 123, just read up on it. The vertical stabilizer detached in that case. If the stabilizer were to detach, it would have disastrous consequences to Pitch attitude.

[ddevos]

On Mar 25th 2022 the CAAC reported in the 5th press conference, that the gear box of an engine as well as the main landing gear have been found and recovered. Some of the aircraft parts showed traces of fire. The CVR's memory chip is damaged and needs to be sent to the chip manufacturer for repair according to recommendation by the manufacturer. At this time there are no time estimates of when the data can be downloaded.

I'm not sure what else they expected to see, with so much flames after the crash, it is rather obvious that there would have been traces of fire...

[Tesla]

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... WfZuJjHXIM

Well the comment section never disappoints.

[wingnutzster]

HMMMM https://www.flyingmag.com/part-of-china ... rash-site/

[Christo]

HMMMM https://www.flyingmag.com/part-of-china ... rash-site/

Not hard to imagine a 737 loosing parts going way past Vmo

[ACE MAN]

There is some suicide talk now in the China media.

[wingnutzster]

There is some suicide talk now in the China media.

...and in local media, people are very quick to jump to pilot error or suicide, as they did in MAX and a host of similar crashes because it provides a quick and understandable answer to a very difficult puzzle, the CVR will clear that up in an instant. In a list of likely causes pilot suicide should be right near the bottom given how rare intentional crashes are, the Aviation Safety Network identifies only eight instances worldwide since 1976 in literally thousands of airline crashes in that period.

I can list hundreds of crashes that were thought or said to be pilot suicide which turned out not to be.

Unless some damning evidence comes to light it really isn't on the table, so far it's just media hearsay. If it turns out to in fact be a case of pilot suicide then as rare as it is the already strained industry will have to carefully react, perhaps looking at new cockpit procedures in the event of such an attempt or go even deeper and take greater responsibility for the mental health of its crews. Pilot murder-suicide is the worst-case scenario I think, airplanes can be fixed, systems can be fixed.

[jimdavis]

There is some suicide talk now in the China media.

Hmmmm. It sounds as if there were three, or possibly even four, of them in the cockpit. This makes suicide unlikely unless someone used a gun.

jim