The March 2022 crash of a China Eastern airliner into a mountainside, killing 132 people, believed to have been a deliberate act.
The Wall Street Journal claimed, citing individuals familiar with US officials’ first assessment, that flight data from the lost airliner indicated someone in the cockpit drove the Boeing 737-800 into a “near-vertical” drop while travelling at a high altitude on March 21, 2022.
According to authorities, data from a black box discovered near the crash scene near Wuzhou in the southern region of Guangxi suggested that controls in the cockpit led the plane into its catastrophic descent.
“The plane performed what someone in the pilot commanded it to do,” a source close to the situation told the Wall Street Journal.
According to the source, Chinese officials have yet to blame the March 21 disaster on mechanical or flight control faults.
According to the publication, the revelation has shifted the investigation’s focus to the acts of a pilot, but it’s also plausible that someone else aboard the plane stormed into the cockpit and caused the catastrophe.
