The Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 that crashed into a Chinese mountainside on March 21 came down as a result of a deliberate act, according to U.S. officials investigating the incident.
The Boeing 737 was on a flight from Kunming to Guangzhou when it suddenly went into a steep dive and crashed into a mountainous area in Guangxi, China. All 123 passengers and nine crew members were killed.
The Chinese counterpart to the National Transportation Safety Board, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, did not see any mechanical problems causing the crash, and neither did the NTSB. There were other indications that led American investigators to the conclusion that the plane was deliberately crashed.
The officials who spoke to ABC News point to the plane’s flaps not being engaged and landing gear not put down. The near-vertical descent of the plane, they believe, would’ve required intentional force.
The plane slammed into the ground with such force that it created a 66-foot deep hole in the ground, according to Chinese officials.
Investigators also looked into one of the pilots’ personal lives and background and believe he may have been struggling through certain issues right before the crash, ABC News has learned.
No one should expect the nation that hid the outbreak of a virus that has killed an estimated 6 million people to be forthcoming about the crash of a passenger plane that only killed 123 people. True to form, the Chinese CAAC says nothing was wrong with the plane.
China Eastern, in a statement to The Wall Street Journal, said no evidence has emerged that could determine whether or not there were any problems with the aircraft involved in the accident. The airline repeated its senior official’s statement from March that the pilots’ health and family conditions were good, and added that their financial status was also in good shape.
The airline said it wasn’t responsible for the accident investigation and referred to official announcements, including the Chinese government’s summary of its preliminary report released on April 20. The summary said that data restoration and analysis of the damaged black boxes was still in progress.
“Any unofficial speculation may interfere with the accident investigation and affect the real progress of the global air transport industry,” the airline said.
To paraphrase: “Any unofficial speculation of a leak from our lab in Wuhan may interfere with the investigation into the origins of the virus and affect the real progress of the global fight against the virus.”
The pilot was either “struggling through certain issues” or his “health and family conditions were good,” the Chinese officials claim.
The Chinese also claim that it was unlikely that there was a breach of the cockpit that led to the jet being steered into the ground. The pilot never sent a distress code, they said.
Yadayadayada — the Chinese Communists are incapable of uttering the truth, so we’ll probably never know what happened. And the families of those lost will continue to wonder why their loved ones died.
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