Mystery deepens: China Eastern 737 right wing tip found 12km from crash

The mystery surrounding the loss of China Eastern flight MU5735 has deepened with the revelation that part of the aircraft's right wing tip was found 12km from the crash site. China Eastern Flight MU5735 crashed on Tuesday, March 21, 2022, claiming 132 lives. The new revelation comes in the preliminary report from The Civil Aviation Administration of China into the tragedy and mainly includes factual information such as flight history, crew and maintenance personnel, airworthiness maintenance, and wreckage distribution. Flight MU5735 a Boeing 737-800 B-1791 of China Eastern Airlines took off from Kunming Changshui Airport at 13:16 Beijing time and climbed to an altitude of 8900m. At 14:20:55 Guangzhou area control radar showed a “deviation” warning, as the aircraft left the cruise altitude. ATC called the crew but received no reply. SEE the podcast: Flight Safety Detectives dissect the Netflix doco “Downfall”. READ: Etihad Airways unveils its new A350 READ: Can the giant AN-225 fly again? The initial report says that at 14:21 the last recorded aircraft information on radar was a standard pressure altitude of 3380 meters with a ground speed of 1010 km/h. The report states that while most of the debris of the aircraft was found at the impact crater the trailing edge of the right wingtip was found approximately 12kms away. There were traces of fire in the forest vegetation at the scene of the accident. Major wreckage including horizontal stabilizer, vertical tail, rudder, left and right engines, left and right wings, fuselage parts, landing gear and cockpit parts were found at the scene. The investigators found no issues with the qualifications of the flight crew and cabin crew nor with the maintenance of the 737. It also said there was no cargo declared as dangerous goods. It added that the download of the CVR and FDR is still in progress. About AirlineRatings.com Airlineratings.com was developed to provide everyone in the world a one-stop shop for everything related to airlines, formed by a team of aviation editors, who have forensically researched nearly every airline in the world. Our rating system is rated from one to seven stars on safety – with seven being the highest ranking. Within each airline, you will find the country of origin, airline code, booking URL and seat map information. The rating system takes into account a number of different factors related to audits from aviation’s governing bodies, lead associations, as well as the airlines, own safety data. Every airline has a safety rating breakdown so you can see exactly how they rate. Over 230 of the airlines on the site that carry 99 per cent of the world’s passengers have a product rating. Given that low cost, regional and full-service carriers are so different we have constructed a different rating system for each which can be found within each airline.