Author: David Shepherdson and Kathy Hall
WASHINGTON/SHANGHAI, May 6 (Reuters) – The fuel supply to both engines of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 jet was shut off before it crashed into a hillside in southern China in March 2022, killing all 132 people on board, data released by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board showed this week.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday that an investigation into China’s worst air crash in three decades found no safety issues. The fuel switch on the Boeing 737 aircraft is a physical control that regulates the flow of fuel to the engine, and the pilot must pull the switch up before it switches it from run to cut.
Its release is the first major investigative update on the fatal crash.
In March, China’s aviation regulator chose not to release an annual update on the crash investigation for the second year in a row, allowing the fourth anniversary to pass without providing any insight into the cause of the crash.
The data released by the NTSB in response to a Freedom of Information request comes from the plane’s flight data recorder. It showed that before the plane descended, the fuel switches for both engines moved simultaneously from the run position to the cut-out position.
Reuters reported in 2022 that investigators focused on the behavior of the crew and found no evidence of technical failures.
“It was discovered that while cruising at an altitude of 29,000 feet, the fuel switches on both engines moved from the run position to the cut-off position. The engine speeds decreased after the fuel switches were moved,” the NTSB report said.
The crash of a Boeing 737-800 operated by China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 was China’s worst air disaster in decades.
Intentional crashes are extremely rare. In March 2015, a Germanwings co-pilot deliberately crashed an Airbus A320 into a French hillside, killing all 150 people on board.
In June, an Air India Boeing 787 crashed in Ahmedabad, India, killing 260 people. The captain’s behavior came under close scrutiny.
A preliminary investigation report by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) shows that after takeoff, the fuel engine switch was switched from running to cut off almost simultaneously.
A source familiar with U.S. officials’ early assessment of the evidence told Reuters in July that transcripts of cockpit conversations between the two pilots supported the idea that Captain Sabharwal cut off fuel flow to the engine.
Chinese regulators have yet to release a full report detailing the findings of the crash and have not provided an update on the investigation in more than two years.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) and China Eastern Airlines did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on the report, and a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to answer questions about the U.S. findings at a regular news conference on Wednesday.
The flight data recorder was one of two black boxes recovered from the wreckage. Since Boeing is an American aircraft manufacturer, it was sent to the NTSB laboratory in Washington for analysis.
(Reporting by Kathy Hall and David Shepherdson; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and David Gregorio)
