Asian Tech Press (Mar. 22) -- A China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800, carrying 132 people, crashed in the mountains in southern China's Guangxi province on Monday.
Currently, the search and rescue efforts for the Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 are underway. Missing persons' belongings have been seen at the crash site, but no survivors have been found.
In response, Boeing said Monday it is working with China Eastern Airlines to provide them with the full support of its technical experts in the investigation of the crash.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) also said on Monday it has assigned a senior air safety investigator, along with technical advisors from Boeing, engine manufacturer General Electric and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), to assist in the investigation, which will be led by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
There have been various speculations and doubts about the cause of the accident.
According to flight data, Flight MU5735 dropped from 8,869 meters (29,098 feet) to 1,333.5 meters (4,375 feet) in just two minutes before the crash.
And a surveillance video exposed online shows that the plane, which did not disintegrate, plunged headfirst into a mountainous forest at a very high speed.
Geoffrey Thomas, an internationally renowned aviation safety expert and former editor-in-chief of Air Transport World, said that the way the aircraft nosedived vertically was "very unusual."
"It is very unusual for this sort of a profile to occur," Mr Thomas said.
Chinese aviation expert Ke Yubao said, "Technically speaking, the plane suddenly dropped such a large altitude in a short period of time during the cruise phase, which is more likely to be a mechanical failure."
"Such a large altitude, so fast, there should be a problem with the horizontal stabilisers. A problem with the aircraft's wings, ailerons or directional heading would not have caused this," Ke added.
Arthur Rowe, specialist fellow in gas turbine performance and operability centre for propulsion engineering at Cranfield University, told The Sun online, "It looks most likely a loss of control event, possibly following a high altitude stall of the aircraft."
"There are multiple possible causes. Jammed or unresponsive control surfaces, especially on the tail are one," Rowe continued.
Wang Yanan, editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, said in an interview Monday that despite many speculations such as technical failures, the specific cause of the accident needs to be determined after finding the black boxes of the Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735.
