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A Boeing 737 that plummeted 30,000ft to the ground and burst into flames in China killing all 132 on board suffered a catastrophic 'loss of control event' and plunged to the ground at 350 mph in a two-minute death spiral, experts have warned.
The China Eastern Airlines flight nosedived before smashing into the hillside and erupting in a huge fireball near the city of Wuzhou in Teng county in the southern province of Guangxi.
A rescue official reportedly said the plane had completely disintegrated while a fire sparked by the crash ripped through bamboo and trees before being put out. China Eastern expressed "deep condolences" after confirming the fatalities.
Horrifying CCTV footage emerged on social media supposedly showing the jet racing vertically towards the ground in the moments before the smash.
FlightRadar24 tracking data showed the aircraft cruising at 29,100ft at 2.20pm. Around two minutes later it had plummeted to just over 9,000 feet and 20 seconds after that it had fallen to just 3,225ft. The data indicates a vertical descent of 31,000ft per minute or around 350 mph.
President Xi Jinping said that he was "shocked" by the incident and immediately ordered an investigation into the cause.
It is not yet clear what forced the sudden dip and crash, but aviation experts told MailOnline it may have been "a loss of control event, possibly following a high altitude stall of the aircraft" or a sensory failure in the cockpit.
The plane, flight number MU5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou, is believed to be a Boeing 737-89P, which is not part of the MAX series that has been dogged by problems in recent years.
The crash will renew calls for China to make its aviation safety record - which is considered good but allegedly sees an underreporting of safety lapses - more transparent.
China's Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said the aircraft lost contact over the city of Wuzhou.
It had 123 passengers and nine crew on board. State media said earlier there were 133 people on board.
The CAAC said in a statement, "The CAAC has activated the emergency mechanism and sent a working group to the scene.'
The Aviation Safety Network said, "We are following multiple unconfirmed reports about a possible accident involving China Eastern Airlines flight #MU5735 a Boeing 737-89P (B-1791) en route from Kunming to Guangzhou, China."
President Xi said, "We are shocked to learn of the China Eastern MU5735 accident."
He also called for "all efforts" towards the rescue and to find out the "cause of the accident as soon as possible".
One villager told a local news site the plane involved in the crash had "completely fallen apart" and he had seen forest destroyed by the fire caused by the crash.
A local official added, "The exact location of the accident was Langnan township in Teng county."
The flight departed the southwestern city of Kunming at 1.11pm (5.11pm GMT), FlightRadar24 data showed.
News (3)
China Eastern 737-800NG crashed after celebrating "100 million hours of safe flight"
Reported by : Huang Zishan, editor in charge of Hong Kong 01
On 21 March, a Boeing 737 of China Eastern Yunnan Branch Company lost contact over Wuzhou, Guangxi. The Civil Aviation Authority has confirmed the plane crashed. Before the crash of the China Eastern passenger plane, the civil aviation industry in mainland China had maintained continuous and safe flight for 138 consecutive months, and the accumulated time exceeded 100 million hours. On 25 February this year, CCTV news reported that China's civil aviation has set a new record in terms of safe flight. The continuous safe flight of transport aviation has reached 137 months, and the cumulative time has exceeded 100 million hours, setting a new world record.
According to the report, the three major safety indicators, including the ten-year rolling value of the number of fatalities per 100 million passenger-km in China's civil aviation transport, the ten-year rolling value of the million-hour major accident rate, and the ten-year rolling value of the one million sorties major accident rate, have all dropped to "0". , far better than the world average in the same period, and also better than the level of major developed countries. In the past five years, the 10,000-hour rate of China's civil aviation liability and serious liability symptoms has been the lowest in history, and the quality of safe operation has continued to improve.
The crashed model is a Boeing 737-800NG, 6.8 years old. There were 132 people on board, including 123 passengers and 9 crew members. The casualties are unknown.
News (4) to (6) / Reporters : James Gant etal., Daily Mail Boeing 737 passenger jet carrying 133 crashes in rural China | Daily Mail Online
News (4)
China Eastern grounds all its B737-800 jets
State media reported all 737-800s in China Eastern's fleet were ordered grounded, the model is the predecessor to the controversial 737 MAX model but is regarded as safe despite a series of crashes over its long history,
Boeing shares sank by more than 4 percent in the morning of 21 March 2022 Eastern time, in the latest catastrophe to hit the firm after the 737 MAX crashes caused by faulty flight control software led to the indictment of Boeing's top pilot, a $225 million settlement with investors and a $2.5 billion payout to the families of those killed.
News (5)
Plane ripped through bamboo forest
A rescue official reportedly said the plane had completely disintegrated while a fire sparked by the crash ripped through bamboo and trees before being put out.
FlightRadar24 tracking data showed the aircraft cruising at 29,100ft at 2.20pm. Around two minutes later it had plummeted to just over 9,000ft and 20 seconds after that it had fallen to just 3,225ft. The data indicates a vertical descent of 31,000ft per minute or around 350 mph.
Altitude data also appears to show aircraft regain height at around 75,000 feet before beginning its final descent.
News (6)
Families in Kunming received news of crash late
Families of those onboard gathered in China Eastern Airlines Yunnan Company late on 21 March 2022 (Monday) and were assisted by staff as they wait for news of their loved ones.
The flight departed the southwestern city of Kunming at 1.11 pm (5.11 pm GMT), FlightRadar24 data showed. But tracking ended at 2.22 pm (6.22 am GMT) at an altitude of 3,225 feet with a speed of 376 knots. The plane had been cruising at an altitude 29,100 feet at 6.20am GMT, according to FlightRadar24 data.
Just over two minutes and 15 seconds later, the next available data showed it had descended to 9,075 feet. In another 20 seconds, its last tracked altitude was 3,225 feet. It had been due to land in Guangzhou, on the east coast, at 3.05 pm (7.05 am GMT).
News (7)
MU5375 crashed from an altitude of 9,000 m. Industry analysis of three major reasons
Reporter : Xue Fei / Editor: Xu Gengwen / https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2022/03/21/a103379612.html / Image : A scene of surveillance footage showed that the crashed passenger plane of China Eastern flight MU5735 was swooping down into the mountains in a vertical manner. (Video screenshot)
The real-time flight data of MU5735 shows that at 14:20, the altitude of the aircraft was 8869.68 m, and at 14:22, the altitude was 1333.5 m, and the local altitude of Wuzhou was about 200-300 meters.
According to The Paper and other media reports, China Eastern Airlines crashed the 737 passenger plane. The moment before the crash crashed to the ground, it was captured by a surveillance camera from a nearby mine, showing that the passenger plane was swooping down into the mountains in a vertical manner. The surveillance voiceover said, "Whoops! Just drop down."
The staff of Wuzhou Beichen Mining Co., Ltd., a company that captured the surveillance footage, said that at the time of the incident, he was working on a hill in the mining area, which was about three or four km away from where the plane crashed. Suddenly I heard an explosion, "I thought someone was firing a salute on the hill next door. The explosion didn't last long. I didn't expect the plane to crash."
Rescue forces that arrived first found wreckage and debris from the airliner, but no remains of the victims.
An aviation professional told "Upstream News" that the last ADS-B radar data of MU5735 showed that the plane had been rapidly dropping altitude before it lost contact with the ground, "even if both engines of the 737 airliner failed at the same time, it would not It is possible to fall at this speed, and the plane can also fly some distance by gliding."
The professional believes that the flight MU5735 fell more than 8,000 m in the last two minutes, and the distance between the wreckage of the wing and the main wreckage indicates that the aircraft disintegrated before it touched the ground. It also illustrates this point."
The official Weibo account of the traffic channel of Caijing magazine, "Traveling a Guest", quoted a civil aviation industry insider, Li Hanming, who analyzed that the cruising altitude of a passenger plane dropped sharply within a few minutes. There are generally several reasons for accidents in this situation. "One is that the pilot intends to commit suicide. , the second is being hit by foreign objects such as missiles, and the third is the problem of aircraft design or maintenance."
In 1997, a SilkAir passenger plane crashed in Indonesia in a similar situation, the report said. A subsequent investigation by the local government found that the reason was probably because the captain (Zhu Weimin) wanted to die after his investment failed.
However, he believes that this is unlikely. Because the CAAC has long established a requirement for the number of cockpit crew members to be kept at least two in flight, the airlines have incorporated this requirement into the "Operation Manual", and it is unlikely that one person will insist.
However, there was news on the Internet that the pilot Zhu Weimin (note, the name of the captain of this flight is not Zhu Weimin, the source suspected to have borrowed the name of the Indonesian captain to insinuate a similar air disaster) was suspected of financial problems, so he paid the co-pilot and turned off the cockpit recorder during the flight. The plane crashed. But the news has not been verified.
As for the other two possibilities, the passenger plane was shot down by foreign objects such as missiles, which has happened in history, but Li Hanming believes that the probability of occurrence in China is relatively small.
As for the third reason, the problem of aircraft design or maintenance. "This type of aircraft was introduced to American Airlines in 1998, and there have been fewer than 15 air crashes in 24 years, which is unlikely to be a design issue. Most of these crashes occurred during take-off and landing due to bad weather. And there is no similar record for an aircraft that fell like this at a cruising altitude," Li Hanming said.
According to public information, the crashed flight was a B737-800NG passenger plane with registration number B1791 and an age of 6.8 years. It was delivered to China Eastern Airlines Yunnan Company in 2015.
As of the end of February 2022, there are 1,189 B737-800 aircraft in the fleet of mainland Chinese passenger airlines, of which China Southern has 163 aircraft, ranking first among mainland Chinese passenger airlines. The official website of the Civil Aviation Administration shows that as of March 21, 2022, China's civil aviation has maintained a safety record of 4,227 days.
News (8) to (14) / Host : Qin Peng / Publisher : Qin Peng Live / https://www.ntdtv.com/gb/2022/03/21/a103379984.html
News (8)
China Eastern mourn deaths of MU5735 crash, three major reasons analyzed by industrial insiders deleted
Reporter : Elmira Tanatarova, Daily Mail / https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10637393/Chinese-pilot-regained-consciousness-G-forces-knocked-crew.html / Image : Xinhua/Shutterstock
All of those on board "would have been unconscious" for this final plunge, Gethin suggests.
She added, 'Pilots get a huge amount of training, much of it in simulators. But in the real world, they can get overwhelmed or disorientated by sudden events. This is known as the startle effect, and it is every hard to train for that.
"Even experienced pilots can be caught off guard and that's when they can make poor judgements. Now there are efforts to recognise that and offer additional training."
Ms Gethin said it is "too soon to speculate"' about what may have caused the crash, but some possibilities could have been a malfunction with the tail, weather, or a myriad of issues which may have affected the aircraft such as a "small fire on board" or a wiring issue.
She added it is "unusual' that the co-pilot had 30,000 hours of flight experience while the pilot only had 7,000 hours under their belt.
A third trainee pilot, who only had a few hundred ours of flying experience, was also on the plane.
Reporter : Mark Nicol, Daily Mail / https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10633433/Elite-Russian-officers-want-POISON-Putin-replace-Ukrainian-intelligence-officials-say.html
A plot to "poison" Vladimir Putin and frame it as an accident has been hatched by Moscow’s elite, according to Ukrainian intelligence. "In particular, poisoning, sudden disease, or any other “coincidence” is not excluded."
A group of "influential" individuals in Russia have allegedly started planning to remove the president from office – and even lined up a successor. "In particular, poisoning, sudden disease, or any other “coincidence” is not excluded."
The effect of Western sanctions on the Russian economy is the main factor behind the scheme with Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), said to be the favoured replacement.
The Chief Directorate of Intelligence in Ukraine said, "It is known that Bortnikov and some other influential representatives of the Russian elite are considering various options to remove Putin from power.
The Ukrainian intelligence service says that FSB director Oleksandr Bortnikov is the chosen man to replace Putin.
Bortnikov previously served alongside Putin in the KGB but has recently fallen out of favour with the Kremlin following Russia’s military losses in Ukraine.
The former intelligence agent is thought to still have a large influence over insiders in the war-torn country where he ran a number of agents.
A Western source told the Daily Mirror, "These rumours and suspicions within the Moscow inner-circle will sow the seeds of paranoia and doubt in the leadership.
"There is a significant suspicion that a small number of people might actually now try to get rid of the Russian president but whether they will succeed remains to be seen."
It came amid claims that Putin has agreed to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks which could end the war in Ukraine.
The Russian president, who has seen his "special military operation" grind to a halt in recent days, was said to have committed to a summit – which could be announced this week.
Russia has also dropped its demand for the Ukrainian president to be removed from office and replaced by a pro-Moscow puppet leader – a concession forced on the Kremlin by its failures on the battlefield.
On 20 March 2022 President Zelenskyy also said he wants to talk to Putin face to face – but issued a chilling warning that if talks failed it "could mean World War Three".
Speaking on U.S. television channel CNN, he said, "Talks are worth pursuing even if they have a one per cent chance of success...
"We have demonstrated the dignity of our people and our army. But unfortunately our dignity is not going to preserve lives.
Bortnikov has fallen out of favour with Putin after military losses in the first three weeks of the Ukraine war - in which time he has also sacked eight generals.
"So I think that we have to use any format, any chance, in order to have the possibility of negotiating."
The possible peace talks come days after Putin held an extraordinary pro-war rally in front of tens of thousands of spectators.
Officials acting as mediators between Russia and Ukraine said there had been a "convergence" on key issues.
These include Ukraine abandoning its bid to join NATO, "demilitarising" in exchange for security guarantees and lifting restrictions on using the Russian language.
For its part, Russia would be required to announce a ceasefire and withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory.
Moscow also wants Kyiv to recognise its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the independence of two Russia-backed separatist territories in the eastern Donbas region.
However, Ukraine has ruled out making territorial concessions as part of the current negotiations.
Once both sides have finalised these agreements Putin will publicly agree to meet Mr Zelenskyy, it was understood on 19 March.
However, fears were raised over Russia’s motives for engaging in dialogue last night. The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, described the talks as ‘one-sided’.
Other observers suggested Russia may be playing for time before kick-starting its faltering military campaign.
On 19 March, NATO’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg echoed Mr Zelenskyy’s concerns that the conflict could escalate beyond Ukraine’s borders.
He added, "Talks are needed to prevent the conflict becoming a fully-fledged war between NATO and Russia but it is far too early to say whether they could succeed."
It came as 46th U.S. President Joe Biden declined an invitation to visit Ukraine as part of his European tour this week.
Russia has lost almost 10,000 soldiers in less than four weeks in Ukraine, according to its own figures.
The death toll – an incredible tally for a war that the Kremlin believed would be over within days – was published by a pro-government website, but quickly taken down.
There was speculation that it was uploaded by a pro-Ukrainian employee. Russia had previously admitted to 498 deaths – but that was on 2 March 2022.
The news came as satellite photos showed further evidence that Putin's forces were going on the defensive and digging in ahead of a "long war".
Last night's figures said 9,861 soldiers had died in Ukraine, with 16,153 injured. About 15,000 Soviet troops died in Afghanistan after the 1979 invasion – but that was over ten years.
Ukraine has put the Russian dead at 15,000 – but the latest figures are higher than US estimate of 7,000.
The death toll was part of an update from Moscow's defence ministry – and, while they were quickly removed from the website of Komsomolskaya Pravda, a pro-government tabloid, they remained on the archive last night.
Though the figures offer an insight into Ukraine's military successes, there were signs last night that the war was turning Russia's way.
News (25)
UK intelligence: Russian troops are striking Ukrainian targets significantly
A UK intelligence report – seen by the Daily Mail – said Moscow's forces are making significant breakthroughs.
They have more effectively used drones to strike Ukrainian targets on the ground.
Russian forces have also destroyed a number of Turkish-made TB2 drones, which have proved highly effective against its troops and equipment.
Ukrainian ground-to-air defence systems may also have been destroyed, the report suggests, as increasing numbers of missiles have been finding their targets.
Russian rockets have struck a training base for foreign fighters – killing 35 and wounding 134 troops – an aircraft repair facility and underground silos storing Kyiv's stockpile of Western weapons.
The report explains how Russia, after replenishing its artillery supplies, has "steadily increased its bombardment of various cities, particularly Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv".
News (26)
Russian hypersonic missile can bypass anti-missile defence systems
UK defence analysts have also expressed concern that Russia's Kinzhal hypersonic missile can bypass anti-missile defence systems.
Analysts also questioned previous Western assessments that Ukrainian air defences remained effective.
The intelligence report says Russia intends its "total destruction" of Mariupol to "serve as a warning to other cities".
It said, "The pattern of destruction of food and water supplies, targeting of civilians, indiscriminate use of firepower to advance, is already being repeated elsewhere. This is based on effective lessons learned [by the Russians] in Syria."
News (27)
Ukraine fears invasion by Belarus
In another alarming assessment, Kyiv fears there is a "high likelihood" of Belarus joining Russia's invasion.
Its armoured forces are expected to head south, 'likely towards Lviv', in western Ukraine.
News (28)
Many small Ukrainian cities wiped off, Russian troops are fighting civilians by planting mines
On a visit to London, Ukraine's defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said, 'Several small cities have simply been wiped off the face of the earth.
"Moscow is afraid of our army so they are fighting civilians."
The Kremlin's forces appeared to be digging in a strong defensive position around Kyiv as satellite imagery released on Friday pictured Russian mines planted northwest of the capital.
An American think-tank remarked that "Russian forces did not make any major advances on March 21" and did not "conduct major offensive operations", continuing to push on with 'low-quality reserves' and riddled with logistics issues.
On Sunday the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that Russia is preparing its people '"for a long war" as the "occupation forces have lost their offensive potential".
News (29)
Russian troops unable to solve logistics issues
The latest assessment of Putin's offensive campaign from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) on 21 March 2022 said Russian forces 'continued to make slow but steady progress and shell civilian infrastructure in Mariupol' and 'did not conduct offensive operations in northeastern Ukraine and have been unable to solve logistics issues'.
It further added, "Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations toward the northeastern Ukrainian cities of Chernihiv, Sumy, or Kharkiv in the last 24 hours."
The report added that Putin's forces deploy "low-quality reserves, including combat-support elements and low-readiness units from the Eastern Military District, to replace losses in frontline units".
News (30)
Ukraine needs international assistance to defuse explosives after the war
On Friday (18 March 2022), Denys Monastyrsky told The Associated Press that Ukraine will need Western assistance to cope with the massive task of defusing explosives once the war is over.
He said, "A huge number of shells and mines have been fired at Ukraine and a large part haven't exploded, they remain under the rubble and pose a real threat.
"It will take years, not months, to defuse them."
Ukrainian troops have also have planted land mines at bridges, airports and other key infrastructure to prevent Russians from using them.
"We won't be able to remove the mines from all that territory, so I asked our international partners and colleagues from the European Union and the United States to prepare groups of experts to determine the areas of combat and facilities that came under shelling," Monastyrsky added.
According to The Times, a military source told the paper that planting mines was a part of Russia's new "defensive posture" and "indicates they are in it for the long haul".
On Sunday Ukraine's General Staff of the Armed Forces also said in a Facebook post: 'The opponent continues to bear losses, has significant problems with the composition of units and parts of the personal composition, logistics.
"At the same time, Russian propagandists started preparing the population of the Russian Federation for a long war.
"Official communication channels are spreading propaganda about alleged success in conducting the so-called 'special military operation", public measures are being carried out to support the war in Ukraine."
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