China Eastern pilots were highly experienced, adding to crash’s mystery
The pilot of the China Eastern Airlines flight that crashed in southern China with 132 people aboard was an industry veteran with more than 6,000 hours of flying time. His co-pilot was even more experienced, having flown since the early days of China’s post-Mao era, training on everything from Soviet-model biplanes to newer Boeing models. Together, the men operating Flight 5735 had more than 39,000 hours of flying experience, the equivalent of four and a half years nonstop in the cockpit, adding to the mystery of why the plane plunged from a cruising altitude of 29,000 feet into a wooded mountainside on Monday. How they piloted the Boeing 737 will be closely examined as investigators seek to explain what is probably China’s worst air disaster in more than a decade. Experts have said it is unlikely that anyone survived the crash. On Thursday, rescuers said they had found engine components, part of a wing and other “important debris” as they searched the mountainside in a rural part of the Guangxi region for a fourth day. A four-foot-long piece of debris suspected to be from the plane was found more than six miles from the main crash site, said Zheng Xi, the commander in chief of the Guangxi Fire Rescue Corps. As a result, search teams will widen the area they are combing, he added. At the main crash site, a state broadcaster showed the workers digging with shovels around a large piece of wreckage that the reporter described as a wing, which bore part of the China Eastern logo and was perched on a steep, barren slope fringed by dense thickets of now-flattened bamboo. Heavy rains had left the roads slick and inundated the earth with muddy pools. A day earlier, the workers had found a black box, believed to be the cockpit voice recorder, which could provide investigators with crucial details. Officials said it was damaged but that its memory unit was relatively intact. The plane’s second black box, which records flight data, has yet to be recovered. China Eastern officials have described the crew as having no health problems or faults on their records. Their past performance was “very good,” Sun Shiying, the chairman of China Eastern Airlines’ Yunnan branch, said on Wednesday. When reached by phone, an airline representative declined to answer further questions about the crew.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2022-03-25/sky/china-eastern-pilots-were-highly-experienced-adding-to-crash2019s-mystery
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China Eastern pilots were highly experienced, adding to crash’s mystery
The pilot of the China Eastern Airlines flight that crashed in southern China with 132 people aboard was an industry veteran with more than 6,000 hours of flying time. His co-pilot was even more experienced, having flown since the early days of China’s post-Mao era, training on everything from Soviet-model biplanes to newer Boeing models. Together, the men operating Flight 5735 had more than 39,000 hours of flying experience, the equivalent of four and a half years nonstop in the cockpit, adding to the mystery of why the plane plunged from a cruising altitude of 29,000 feet into a wooded mountainside on Monday. How they piloted the Boeing 737 will be closely examined as investigators seek to explain what is probably China’s worst air disaster in more than a decade. Experts have said it is unlikely that anyone survived the crash. On Thursday, rescuers said they had found engine components, part of a wing and other “important debris” as they searched the mountainside in a rural part of the Guangxi region for a fourth day. A four-foot-long piece of debris suspected to be from the plane was found more than six miles from the main crash site, said Zheng Xi, the commander in chief of the Guangxi Fire Rescue Corps. As a result, search teams will widen the area they are combing, he added. At the main crash site, a state broadcaster showed the workers digging with shovels around a large piece of wreckage that the reporter described as a wing, which bore part of the China Eastern logo and was perched on a steep, barren slope fringed by dense thickets of now-flattened bamboo. Heavy rains had left the roads slick and inundated the earth with muddy pools. A day earlier, the workers had found a black box, believed to be the cockpit voice recorder, which could provide investigators with crucial details. Officials said it was damaged but that its memory unit was relatively intact. The plane’s second black box, which records flight data, has yet to be recovered. China Eastern officials have described the crew as having no health problems or faults on their records. Their past performance was “very good,” Sun Shiying, the chairman of China Eastern Airlines’ Yunnan branch, said on Wednesday. When reached by phone, an airline representative declined to answer further questions about the crew.<br/>
