Expert Says There Was a Fight for Control Before China Crash

In the chaotic final seconds of China Eastern Flight 5735, at least two people appear to have been fighting over the Boeing 737's controls, aviation experts say. Newly released US safety data, drawn from the jet's flight data recorder, indicates the plane's engines were intentionally shut down midair by someone in the cockpit, triggering a near-vertical plunge in March 2022 that killed all 132 on board. Former National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration accident investigator Jeff Guzzetti tells the New York Times that the engines were cut when both fuel control levers were moved to the "off" position at cruising altitude, a move he calls deliberate.

The jet then pitched down into a steep dive, rolled at least once, and showed "herky-jerky" control wheel inputs consistent with two people trying to turn the controls in opposite directions, he says. "Aggressive movements to pitch the airplane down and to roll it dramatically tell me this was an intentional act," Guzzetti says. Another expert, aviation safety consultant and retired pilot John Cox, agrees the commands originated in the cockpit but cautions that evidence of an apparent tug-of-war over the controls is not "totally conclusive."

• Guzzetti says the flight recorder also shows that the plane was descending at an angle of up to 40 degrees at one point. "It's the kind of movement you see aerobatic airplanes perform in an air show," he says. "It would have been a shock to the passengers because of the forces imparted on them from these drastic maneuvers."

China, which has tightly limited public information on the country's deadliest crash in decades and hasn't released an investigation update in two years, has not commented on the data, which was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request to the NTSB. The flight data recorder was sent to the US for analysis because Boeing is an American company, reports Reuters. The NTSB said Wednesday that its investigation didn't uncover any safety issues with the aircraft.