China Jet Nosedived Nearly At Speed of Sound Before Crash: Experts
China Eastern Airlines Corp Jet that fell Monday was traveling at the speed of sound in times before slamming to the hillside, according to Bloomberg flight news reviews.
Such impacts can make it difficult for researchers because it can eliminate the evidence and, in rare cases, damaging data and aircraft voice recorders designed to hold most of the crashes.
Boeing Co. 737-800 is a knife in the air more than 640 miles (966 kilometers) per hour, and sometimes it may have exceeded 700 mph, according to data from FlighTradar24, a website that tracks the plane.
“Preliminary data shows that it is close to the speed of sound,” said John Hansman, an Institute of Massachusetts Astronautics and Professor Aeronautics who reviewed the Bloomberg calculation of the jet speed. “It’s steep down.”
The sound moves at 761 mph at sea level but slows down by altitude because the air temperature drops and around 663 mph at 35,000 feet (10,668 meters).
Flight 5735 flew to Guangzhou from Kunming with 132 people above a height of around 29,000 feet when it began to fall suddenly, according to the data transmitted by the aircraft and was captured by FlighTradar24. Jetliner is sailing around 595 mph before diving.
Speed data is consistent with the video that appears to indicate a jet diving at a steep angle at times before it has an impact and shows that it is likely to hit the soil with great strength.
“It was a very high energy accident,” said Bob Mann, President R.W. Mann & Co. Consultancy, which does not participate in speed analysis. “It seems like it really evaporates to the crater. Is the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder or quick access recorder – does anyone survive? I just don’t know the answer.”
Modern black box recorders, which store data on computer chips, have good survival records in high-speed accidents, said James Cash, who previously served as the Head of the Technical Technical Technical Council of the US National Transportation Safety for the recorder.
“The difficult part will find it,” said Cash.
The circuit board stores data often escapes the exterior of the recording protector. But data can usually be extracted even if they are damaged, he said.
“Maybe embedded on the ground somewhere,” he said. “But I will suspect it will be o.k.”
No Beacon Activated
Zhu Tao, an official with the Chinese civil aviation administration, told the briefing on Tuesday that recorders had not recovered. Finders will not be helped by flare or “ping” from the device because they are only activated under water.
Two recorders in eastern China 737-800 – Cockpit and other voice recorders that capture flight data – supplied by the Aerospace division of Honeywell International Inc. And installed on the plane when it was new, according to the spokesman for the Adam Kress company.
The accident investigator has more than decades that are enhanced in the debris examination to look for instructions, but some of the impacts can eliminate the evidence. Ethiopian 737 max airline accident in 2019 was traced back to the sensor on the nose of the plane, but the sensor was never found after the jet crashed into the ground at high speed, according to the initial report from the country.
Accident investigators must be able to find more precise speed data from the Jet flight recorder. If not available for several reasons, Aerodynamic experts can carry out broad analysis for closer estimate speeds.
FLIGHTRADAR24 data includes jet speed, but is measured horizontally throughout the ground. Bloomberg calculations provide a rough idea of how quickly it flew through the air by taking into account the horizontal speed on the ground and how quickly it goes down.
Estimated speed is based on how fast the jet is traveling between two points and does not take into account the wind direction or other atmospheric conditions. Bloomberg reviews are conservatives and actual speeds may be higher.
While unverified videos showed a diving plane at a steep angle near the ground, it was not clear how fast it was traveling with impact. The latest data transmission captured by FlighTradar24 occurred around 3,200 feet altitude.
About 40 seconds before the last transmission, the jet stops down and briefly climbs before continuing the diving. During the next flight stage, it rather slows down, according to a preliminary review.
It still flies much faster than usual. Usually, the jet does not enter above 288 mph at an altitude below 10,000 feet. The East China Jet travels with around 470 mph or more at the height, according to FLIGHTRADAR24 data.