China jet’s nosedive from 29,000 feet baffles crash specialists

The China Eastern jet was flying a normal route to Guangzhou when it suddenly nosed over at cruise altitude and dove. That’s about all that is known for certain about the unusual crash that feared killed all 132 people aboard the aircraft Monday in China’s worst commercial aviation accident in more than a decade. While there have been a handful of crashes in which an airliner plunged from cruising altitude, few, if any, fit the extreme profile of the Boeing 737-800 as it pointed steeply toward the ground, according to veteran crash investigators and previous accident reports. “It’s an odd profile,” said John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former 737 pilot. “It’s hard to get the airplane to do this.” As investigators search for the plane’s two crash-proof recorders and begin poring over clues, they will be trying to determine why the jet made such an abrupt and severe dive, which sets it apart from earlier accidents. They will be looking at the weather the plane encountered, whether the pilots made any distress calls, any hints in the wreckage of possible malfunctions and detailed profiles of the crew. Flight MU5735 was at about 29,000 feet (8,839.2m) altitude roughly 100 miles (160.93k) from its destination -- about the point at which the pilots would begin descending to land -- when it started plunging at a far greater rate than normal. Instead of gradually dropping by a few thousand feet per minute -- which produces a barely detectable sensation for passengers -- it began falling at more than 30,000 feet per minute within seconds, according to tracking data logged by Flightradar24. Overall, it plunged almost 26,000 feet in the span of roughly 1 minute, 35 seconds, the data track showed. The plane’s dive appeared to have halted for about 10 seconds and it climbed briefly, adding an unusual twist to the scenario. But the Flightradar24 track, which is based on radio transmissions from the plane, then showed it resuming a steep plunge. <br/>