Boeing 737-800 Grounded after China Eastern Crash

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A China Eastern Boeing 737-800 crashed in southern China today (Monday, March 21, 2022), killing all 123 onboard MU5735 Is there a connection to the Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines B737 Max crashes.

            This twin-engine plane, part of a fleet that was in use since 2015, reportedly went down in a forested area minutes after something went wrong following a deep dive from about 30,000 feet, according to FlightRadar24.com, a flight-tracking data website.

Are Boeing 737-800 and 737 MAX the same?

The 737-800 is an older model. Some airlines were shifting to the 737-Max, a newer narrow-body plane. The 737-Max was temporarily grounded worldwide after two of them crashed nearly four years ago. The 737-Max has been widely criticized after one of them crashed in Indonesia in late 2018 and a second crashed in Ethiopia.

China Eastern Airlines today grounded all Boeing 737-800 passenger jets following the crash of flight #MU5735. The airline has 102 of this variant of the 737 – all now are grounded.

The Boeing 737-800 involved is one of the world’s most popular airline jets — over 5,000 of this specific variant (the -800) have been delivered by Boeing to airline customers worldwide.

Boeing 737-800 are flying with no restrictions in the United States, Canada and Europe at this time.

            “We need to know more information before any conclusions are made regarding this sudden and tragic crash,” said Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner at Clifford Law Offices in Chicago who serves as Lead Counsel in the pending litigation in federal district court on the Boeing crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 that crash three years ago this month shortly after takeoff killing all 157 onboard.  “This type of crash on a six-year-old plane that was designed and certified in the 1990s is quite unusual.”

            Clifford went on to say that families of those who lost loved ones in the ET302 Boeing crash three years ago still await the final report from Ethiopian authorities on the cause of that crash.  “Assuming the report is an objective, deep dive into the cause, the Ethiopian report will show that the airline called Boeing after the first crash of the Boeing 737 MAX, and authorities were not told of the problem with the MCAS system that could have avoided the second crash in Ethiopia.”

            The next version of the Boeing 737-900, the MAX 8, was a new plane that crashed in the Java Sea off of Indonesia shortly after takeoff in October 2018, killing all 189 onboard.  Just five months later, another 737 MAX crashed in Ethiopia that included people from 35 countries including America and Canada.  Clifford Law Offices represents more than 70 people on board that flight including four passengers from mainland China as well as a passenger from Hong Kong and a Chinese national from Canada.

             Investigators have found that a new software system, MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristic Augmentation System), of which pilots were not told or trained, was the cause of those two crashes. 

What does MCAS do?

MCAS, or Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, provides consistent airplane handling characteristics in a very specific set of unusual flight conditions. MCAS now contains multiple enhanced protections:

  • Measurements from two Angle of Attack (AOA) sensors will be compared.
  • Each sensor will submit its own data to the airplane’s flight control computer.
  • MCAS will only be activated if both sensors agree.
  • MCAS will only be activated once.
  • MCAS will never override the pilot’s ability to control the airplane using the control column alone.

Criminal Jury Trial begins today

A jury trial starts today in Texas against a former Boeing chief technical pilot Mark Forkner who is criminally charged with misleading safety regulators and airlines about the 737 Max and using his experience work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to manipulate the agency into lowering training requirements for pilots.  The FAA certifies planes for flight.

            Opening statements were made Friday by prosecutors who stated Forkner didn’t notify the FAA about the changes in an effort to save Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars the airline manufacturer would have otherwise spent on delivery delays and compensating airlines for in-person pilot simulator training.

About the author

Avatar of Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has continuously worked in the travel and tourism industry since he was a teenager in Germany (1977).
He founded eTurboNews in 1999 as the first online newsletter for the global travel tourism industry.

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