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>> Preliminary evidence suggests the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Corp. jet in March may be the latest such tragedy, a person familiar with the investigati

>> Preliminary evidence suggests the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Corp. jet in March may be the latest such tragedy, a person familiar with the investigation said. What is the preliminary evidence? For this type of conclusion I would think the first and last bit of evidence would be the control inputs as recorded by the black box. Supporting evidence should be on the voice recording. What is this "preliminary evidence"?

jaywalk 4y ago
The video of the plane going down is enough to strongly suggest it. It was almost completely nose-down before it hit the ground, which is basically not going to happen without the pilot commanding it.
- mattkrause 4y ago
  This is also (IIRC) how one recovers from a stall, so it could be a “malign” command, a best-effort at fixing a bigger problem, or anything in between.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    There's nothing in the publicly-available flight data to suggest a stall. The flight was at cruising altitude when the descent started.
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    Stall recovery and intentional dives look very different. 1. In a stall recovery, you don't move the trim to the limit or move the throttles to idle and keep it there for tens of thousands of feet. 2. Planes don't want to keep going in a stable, near vertical dive. You have to force them into that position the entire way down. The flight path for stalls, breaking apart, and control problems are all shallower or slower.
  - _moof 4y ago
    You recover from a stall by relaxing back pressure, not by pushing nose down. If you're pushing when you stall, you're scaring your instructor. :)
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    You lower the nose to unload the wing and simultaneously increase power. That puts you a maximum a few degrees nose down, nothing like this incident's angle.
droopyEyelids 4y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_xupptkcso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_xupptkcso This channel is anti-china propaganda, but they do some research and follow the news.
CWuestefeld 4y ago
I don't read Chinese and can't provide you links, so treat this as very anecdotal. But here's what my (Chinese) wife tells me from their news. It seems the co-pilot was very senior and experienced. But because of the politics of a corporate buyout, he was forever relegated to a supporting role. Job advancement, or even the recognition of his skills, was impossible. He was destined always to be in the right seat. He had complained to management multiple times and given them threats (I'm not sure what the nature of those threats were; likely just to quit?). This came to a head with the crash of the Chinese real estate markets, where he'd had a lot of investment. Basically he lost everything. The story - again, third hand at best by now - is that he left a note before embarking on that final flight.
07d046 4y ago
The WSJ reported US officials saying it looked intentional based on black box data. The main alternative theory was that someone who wasn't a pilot deliberately did it. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-eastern-black-box-points-to-intentional-nosedive-11652805097 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-eastern-black-box-points-...
RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
Another fact is that the plane basically dove straight down. Even with catastrophic control failure, modern airliners just don’t do that.
_moof 4y ago
Probably the other way around. There is a sensory illusion that occurs when accelerating that will induce a pilot to deliberately push nose down, sometimes aggressively. It's powerful - I've seen people do it. (And then quickly took over!) The Atlas crash a few years back was caused by this.
Markoff 4y ago
You don't really need evidence, you just read between lines - Chinese gov would use any opportunity to blame US company for the crash and since they kept quiet it's pretty clear it was human error/action. And considering HOW the airplane crashed it's pretty clear it was intentional, you need to try really hard to crash straight down vertically (with intact airplane).

jaywalk 4y ago

The video of the plane going down is enough to strongly suggest it. It was almost completely nose-down before it hit the ground, which is basically not going to happen without the pilot commanding it.

mattkrause 4y ago
This is also (IIRC) how one recovers from a stall, so it could be a “malign” command, a best-effort at fixing a bigger problem, or anything in between.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  There's nothing in the publicly-available flight data to suggest a stall. The flight was at cruising altitude when the descent started.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Stall recovery and intentional dives look very different. 1. In a stall recovery, you don't move the trim to the limit or move the throttles to idle and keep it there for tens of thousands of feet. 2. Planes don't want to keep going in a stable, near vertical dive. You have to force them into that position the entire way down. The flight path for stalls, breaking apart, and control problems are all shallower or slower.
- _moof 4y ago
  You recover from a stall by relaxing back pressure, not by pushing nose down. If you're pushing when you stall, you're scaring your instructor. :)
- sokoloff 4y ago
  You lower the nose to unload the wing and simultaneously increase power. That puts you a maximum a few degrees nose down, nothing like this incident's angle.

droopyEyelids 4y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_xupptkcso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_xupptkcso This channel is anti-china propaganda, but they do some research and follow the news.

CWuestefeld 4y ago

I don't read Chinese and can't provide you links, so treat this as very anecdotal. But here's what my (Chinese) wife tells me from their news. It seems the co-pilot was very senior and experienced. But because of the politics of a corporate buyout, he was forever relegated to a supporting role. Job advancement, or even the recognition of his skills, was impossible. He was destined always to be in the right seat. He had complained to management multiple times and given them threats (I'm not sure what the nature of those threats were; likely just to quit?). This came to a head with the crash of the Chinese real estate markets, where he'd had a lot of investment. Basically he lost everything. The story - again, third hand at best by now - is that he left a note before embarking on that final flight.

07d046 4y ago

The WSJ reported US officials saying it looked intentional based on black box data. The main alternative theory was that someone who wasn't a pilot deliberately did it. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-eastern-black-box-points-to-intentional-nosedive-11652805097 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-eastern-black-box-points-...

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago

Another fact is that the plane basically dove straight down. Even with catastrophic control failure, modern airliners just don’t do that.

_moof 4y ago

Probably the other way around. There is a sensory illusion that occurs when accelerating that will induce a pilot to deliberately push nose down, sometimes aggressively. It's powerful - I've seen people do it. (And then quickly took over!) The Atlas crash a few years back was caused by this.

Markoff 4y ago

You don't really need evidence, you just read between lines - Chinese gov would use any opportunity to blame US company for the crash and since they kept quiet it's pretty clear it was human error/action. And considering HOW the airplane crashed it's pretty clear it was intentional, you need to try really hard to crash straight down vertically (with intact airplane).