China plane crash in 2022 that killed 132 may be intentional: Report

Over four years after a Boeing 737-800 passenger plane crashed into a mountain in southern China, killing all 132 people aboard, newly released data “appears to indicate that someone in the cockpit may have intentionally switched off the fuel supply to the engines,” CNN reported Monday.

The disaster marked one of the deadliest aviation accidents in China in recent years, yet the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has still not determined the cause behind the deadly nosedive of China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735 in March 2022 over the remote Guangxi region.

Information published by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) indicated that the fuel switches for both engines were turned off simultaneously before the Boeing 737-800 aircraft plunged from the sky.

The data was obtained from the aircraft’s flight data recorder, recovered from the crash site and transported to the NTSB laboratory in Washington, DC for analysis.

“It was found that while cruising at 29,000 feet (8,840 meters), the fuel switches on both engines moved from the run position to the cutoff position. Engine speeds decreased after the fuel switch movement,” the NTSB report said.

Fuel switches on commercial aircraft are manual controls that regulate the flow of fuel to the engines. On a 737, a pilot must lift the switch before moving it from the run position to cutoff.

“This data clearly shows that the fuel switches were manually placed in the off position just prior to the crash,” said David Soucie, CNN aviation safety analyst.

“There is no indication the switches were placed back to the on position. That indicates there was no attempt to restart the engines,” he added. “If the switches were turned off in error the pilots would have made an attempt to turn them back on.”

The CAAC has previously rejected claims that the crash was deliberate.