China has released a preliminary investigation report on the MU5735 aircraft crash that occurred at the end of March.
Identifying Publicly Available Information
On April 20, the Civil Aviation Administration of China published the preliminary accident investigation report for MU5735, operated by China Eastern Airlines, which took place on March 21.
In an interview with Jankang Shibao, a publication of the People’s Daily (China), Wang Yan, the editor-in-chief of Aviation Knowledge and an aviation expert from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, stated that the currently released preliminary investigation report mainly summarizes factual information that has been made public, without including analysis or conclusions regarding the cause of the accident.
According to the Chinese expert, investigations into civil aviation accidents typically take a long time, and preliminary reports released within a month usually do not address speculative analyses or conclusions about the causes of the accident, as providing such analyses within a month is often too soon.
A black box from the crashed Chinese aircraft has been found. (Photo: CGTN)
“However, the preliminary investigation report is still very valuable for subsequent investigations. It confirms factual information from the past in the form of documented reports, showing that behind each incident, there has been a verification process,” Wang stated. For example, in the maintenance records, during the last inspection, the crashed aircraft did not exceed the scheduled maintenance deadline, there were no reported faults prior to the flight on that day, the weather was normal, and radio communication and command control were also normal. This can eliminate a large number of potential causes in subsequent investigations.
“One point to note is that the last recorded radar information for the aircraft: at a standard pressure altitude of 3,380 meters, the ground speed was 1,010 km/h, which is extremely abnormal, far exceeding the flight altitude; within 4 minutes, it descended more than 5,000 meters, and the flight speed was also over 200 km/h faster than normal. Considering the descent posture, the actual speed could be even greater, indicating that the aircraft was in a very dangerous state,” the Chinese expert said.
Subsequent Investigations Focused on the Flight Crew and Aircraft Debris
The Chinese expert noted that the preliminary investigation report did not provide much explanation about the flight crew, and future investigations will focus on them, such as their backgrounds and social relationships.
On the other hand, the investigation will concentrate on analyzing the debris; according to current findings, no faults were identified during the aircraft’s maintenance. The next step will be to see if any signs of damage can be found from the discovered debris. This could redirect the investigation towards critical directions, such as determining whether the issue was technical or related to the flight crew.
According to the investigation report, the two black boxes on the aircraft were severely damaged due to the impact, and work on data recovery and analysis is still ongoing.
Wang believes it is very difficult to determine the percentage of data that can be recovered after the equipment has been damaged.
