5 hours ago, bendead said:

Because the two parts are moving independently, if the stabilizer is locked in nose down position, is it possible to level the 737 with elevator input only? Same question if the elevator is locked, and only moving the stabilizer.

As far as I know if the stabilizer is locked full nose down you can't raise the nose with the elevator as it doesn't have enough authority to overcome that. You may perhaps be able to at least keep the nose from dropping even further, but you're definitely not going to raise the nose in that situation. This was a big problem in the MAX crashes, at least in the Ethiopian one. The crew had already correctly neutralized MCAS by following the runaway trim memory items as instructed by Boeing after the first crash. The aircraft was actually under control at that point and slightly climbing but only with full elevator deflection nose up to keep it from going nose down again. So they were able to keep the nose in place (although I don't know if the stabilizer was at full nose down or just before that) but could not raise it. That's when they reactivated the electric trim system, probably in the hopes of it helping them to correct the mistrim, but it only reactivated MCAS and sadly sealed their fate. Since the MAX flies much like an NG I would assume this to be the same for the NG: being able to stop the nose down motion but not raising the nose back up.

I hope the CVR and FDR survived the accident to tell the story of what on earth happened here.

On 3/21/2022 at 5:06 AM, threegreen said:

Last vertical speed -31000 ft/min...

Wow. Does anyone know how the human body is reacting to such fast altitude change and stuff? 

34 minutes ago, threegreen said:

As far as I know if the stabilizer is locked full nose down you can't raise the nose with the elevator as it doesn't have enough authority to overcome that. You may perhaps be able to at least keep the nose from dropping even further, but you're definitely not going to raise the nose in that situation. This was a big problem in the MAX crashes, at least in the Ethiopian one. The crew had already correctly neutralized MCAS by following the runaway trim memory items as instructed by Boeing after the first crash. The aircraft was actually under control at that point and slightly climbing but only with full elevator deflection nose up to keep it from going nose down again. So they were able to keep the nose in place (although I don't know if the stabilizer was at full nose down or just before that) but could not raise it. That's when they reactivated the electric trim system, probably in the hopes of it helping them to correct the mistrim, but it only reactivated MCAS and sadly sealed their fate. Since the MAX flies much like an NG I would assume this to be the same for the NG: being able to stop the nose down motion but not raising the nose back up.

I hope the CVR and FDR survived the accident to tell the story of what on earth happened here.

Thanks for the info

30 minutes ago, Drumcode said:

Wow. Does anyone know how the human body is reacting to such fast altitude change and stuff? 

Sadly, after reading about Air France 447, everyone on board was probably conscient and terrified during the fall

23 hours ago, bendead said:

Sadly, after reading about Air France 447, everyone on board was probably conscient and terrified during the fall

And the flight deck probably wished they actually bothered to look at the high sig charts and rerouted around the weather. 

The CRM at Air France is horrific, you think after all their incidents over the last 20 years they would revisit their SOPs.  Arogance of the highest degree. 

I saw a video of the actual jet seconds before it crashed into the mountainside.  I have never seen a video like that, of a commercial airliner absolutely vertical (and they say, projected to be at the speed of sound, before impact.   The only thing I can think of,  that would not allow the flight crew to even descend with glide, (no engines)  would be no ability to control the back end (tail of the aircraft).   If a wing had separated, it would have come down in a spiral motion...so that wasn't it.   To plunge from 20,000 feet, vertical...again, to me, suggests a loss of the tail?  Horrible...

Edited March 23, 20224 yr by Sesquashtoo

Not good.

... one of two black boxes from the China Eastern plane that crashed Monday was found in severely damaged condition. The recorder is so damaged that officials are not able to tell whether it is the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.
 

source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/china-plane-crash-no-survivors-found-march-22-1.6393979

It was also reported that the crash site is actually two crash sites. One on one side of the hill and the other on the other side which may suggest a break up of some sort before impact. On the videos it looks like some part may have broken off before impact although I still think it's probably just bad quality making it look like something broke off.

http://avherald.com/h?comment=4f64be2f&opt=0

Edited March 23, 20224 yr by threegreen

I would have thought that even the black boxes would struggle to survive an impact with the ground at 400 mph.....

In today's conference of the CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China) it was stated:

" One black box found, severely damaged
  ATC communications "normal"
  Weather not a factor
  Captain 6709h, 1st F / O 31769h (double confirmed), 2nd F / O 556h, all have good family relationships "

 

ATC communications "normal" implies that the pilots did not launch Mayday or problem messages on board.

CNN reported that China Eastern Airlines grounded 223 Boeing 737-800 aircraft after crash.

After the CVR was found, the FDR has not yet been found.

 

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/24/business/china-eastern-airlines-ground-boeing-737-800-intl-hnk/index.html
 

On 3/23/2022 at 4:34 AM, CYXR said:

Not good.

... one of two black boxes from the China Eastern plane that crashed Monday was found in severely damaged condition. The recorder is so damaged that officials are not able to tell whether it is the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.
 

source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/china-plane-crash-no-survivors-found-march-22-1.6393979

How convenient. I wouldn't belive a word from the Chinese and yes I can see its a Canadian outlet that's reporting it. 

 

On 3/23/2022 at 7:28 AM, RobPol471 said:

In today's conference of the CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China) it was stated:

" One black box found, severely damaged
  ATC communications "normal"
  Weather not a factor
  Captain 6709h, 1st F / O 31769h (double confirmed), 2nd F / O 556h, all have good family relationships "

 

ATC communications "normal" implies that the pilots did not launch Mayday or problem messages on board.

'Good family relationships' . That's nice and nondescript, and a typical 'saving face'  type of comment. There is no way in the world in less than a week you can rule out someone's state of mind, or mental wellbeing. 

It doesn't rule out pilot suicide, but it's a nice a fluffy line, I'll give them that.  

An f/o with nearly 32k of hours on the 737. How old is he? 

Edited March 27, 20224 yr by fluffyflops

8 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

'Good family relationships' . That's nice and nondescript, and a typical 'saving face'  type of comment. There is no way in the world in less than a week you can rule out someone's state of mind, or mental wellbeing. 

It doesn't rule out pilot suicide, but it's a nice a fluffy line, I'll give them that.  

An f/o with nearly 32k of hours on the 737. How old is he? 

Regarding the FO with 32k hours, a pilot on an aeronautical forum wrote:

"The first officer listed as having 31,769 hours was a check and training captain, however, in China, they are listed as an F/O on crew manifests. "

The FDR was found while a part of the wing was found about 12 km from the impact. Obviously, it is too early to determine if the plane has had structural self-failure in flight or if this part of the wing has detached due to the high speed of the plane in the dive towards the ground.

15 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

'Good family relationships' . That's nice and nondescript, and a typical 'saving face'  type of comment. There is no way in the world in less than a week you can rule out someone's state of mind, or mental wellbeing. 

It doesn't rule out pilot suicide, but it's a nice a fluffy line, I'll give them that.  

An f/o with nearly 32k of hours on the 737. How old is he? 

On the hypothesis that this disaster was caused by a suicide, an article was published on a Chinese website that deals with politics where it is stated that the elderly pilot with 32k flight hours was the father of the flight captain and had planned to commit suicide due to a relegation from captain to FO due to a serious flight error and a failure of a simulator test.

Obviously, this article remains a hypothesis until the found CVR and FDR will give the causes of this disaster.

This is the translation of the article with the warning of possible translation errors  and relative link :

"There were three pilots of the crashed plane: the captain was a young second generation pilot, his father was an old captain of China Eastern Airlines and a leader of China Eastern Airlines. There were two co-pilots, one was a young man who had just got on the plane. The other is the old pilot who attempted suicide, that is, the long-time planned person who broke the news. This old pilot was a senior captain and instructor, can be checked on the internet, and was classified as a "five-star captain" by China Eastern Airlines. Yes, he was the captain. Last year, due to a flight error, a terrain warning was issued at Yichang Airport, listed as a serious accident not sure, and it was subsequently corrected by the Yunnan branch of China Eastern Airlines. Eventually, he failed the simulator test and was immediately demoted. "

https://gettr.com/post/p11kc3aae1b