US downloading China Eastern cockpit voice recorder

02 April, 2022

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Geoffrey Thomas

Geoffrey Thomas

02 April, 2022

Reuters is reporting that the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is assisting Chinese investigators with the download of the cockpit voice recorder in Washington from the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 that crashed last month. The news comes as the NTSB confirms it is sending a team of investigators to China. It's likely that the cockpit voice recorder will provide investigators with critical details of communications between the flight's three pilots. It will also record any sounds of a possible explosion. The NTSB has sent three investigators to China including Sathya Silva, a senior aviation accident investigator. A small team from Boeing is also travelling to China to assist in the investigation. China Eastern Flightradar24 has provided detailed flight data for China Eastern flight 5735 which crashed on Tuesday, March 21, 2022, claiming 132 lives. The flight was scheduled to depart Kunming at 13:10 local time (05:10 UTC) and arrive in Guangzhou at 15:05 local time. Flightradar 24 said: “MU5735 departed Kunming at 05:16 UTC and reached a cruising altitude of 29,100 feet at 05:27 UTC. The flight continued normally until 06:20 UTC when the aircraft began a rapid descent to 7425 ft AMSL before recovering to 8600 ft AMSL. The aircraft then descended rapidly again. The last ADS-B message received by Flightradar24 from MU5735 was at 06:22:35Z.972 UTC at an altitude of 3225 ft AMSL. “Flightradar24 collects raw ADS-B data from aircraft roughly twice per second. This data is then processed and displayed on the Flightradar24 website with reduced position frequency for data conservation purposes. “The following chart is based on raw decoded data received from MU5735 and includes additional granular data beyond that available on the Flightradar24 history page for this flight. “The graph below depicts the final 150 seconds of data from the flight, beginning just before its first descent from 29100 feet. “The vertical rate reported as part of the ADS-B data comes directly from the aircraft’s computers and is the rate of change based on the aircraft’s sensors at the time of the report. “MU5735 was operated by a Boeing 737-800 registered B-1791 (MSN 41474 | L/N 5453). This 737 was delivered to China Eastern Airlines new in June 2015.”    

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