Today is March 21st, the anniversary of the Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 crash. On this day last year, Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 took off from Kunming, Yunnan, and crashed into the ground during its flight to Guangzhou. All 132 passengers on board, including 9 crew members, were killed. This air disaster is one of the most tragic in our country in recent years. After the plane crashed into the ground, it formed a 45-meter-deep pit, and the plane disintegrated. Its tail wing was found 12 kilometers away from the main site. You can imagine what a cruel scene those passengers on the plane experienced in the last one or two minutes.
After the air disaster, the families of the victims all hoped that the relevant departments would investigate the true cause of the air disaster as soon as possible and make it public, because this is the best consolation for the victims. But a year has passed, and they have waited for nothing. Just yesterday, the website of the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued an announcement, which stated: “This air disaster is very rare and extremely complex. We are still conducting careful investigations, so we cannot tell you anything now, just wait.””
Today, we will continue to talk about the Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 air disaster. First of all, let me state the conclusion: they have already figured out the cause of this air disaster, it is very clear, but they will not tell the public, and will never tell the public. If you want to understand the true cause of this air disaster through the announcement of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, that is a dream, it is like climbing a tree to catch a fish, wishful thinking. So what is the real reason? Let’s talk about it.
On May 18th last year, I did a program on the Eastern Airlines air disaster, and in that program, I came to the conclusion that this air disaster was caused by human factors. There are three main reasons:
First, the air disaster occurred on March 21st last year, and the preliminary report of the accident site was released on April 20th, and the “Boeing 737-800” resumed flights. Because the aircraft type that performed this air disaster was the “Boeing 737-800”, according to the general air disaster handling procedures, for safety reasons, if an air disaster has not been investigated clearly, the aircraft type that performs the flight should be grounded. There is also a condition for resuming flights, that is, the investigation must first rule out all factors related to the design and manufacture of the aircraft before resuming flights. Therefore, the “Boeing 737-800” resumed flights in China on April 20th last year, which indicates a very important reason, that is, the accident investigation team has ruled out the accident air disaster caused by the “Boeing 737-800” itself.
Second, on May 17th last year, the American “Wall Street Journal” obtained some intelligence. Because the main investigating country of this accident is China, but as the NTSB, including Boeing aircraft, has the right to send an investigator to participate in the investigation of the entire accident, but they do not have the right to announce it. The “Wall Street Journal” obtained some information through some means, and the investigators revealed that: “The real cause of this accident was man-made.” Because after the accident, the two black boxes of the aircraft, one is the data flight recorder, and the other is the cockpit voice recorder, were sent to the United States for analysis. During the analysis, the US side must have grasped the real state of the aircraft’s flight and the real situation in the cockpit when the aircraft crashed, so the relevant personnel revealed that: “It seems that the plane was hijacked in the last few minutes, and someone was directing in the cockpit, and the plane had to crash into the ground in this way.” Either the plane was hijacked by people outside the cockpit, or it was hijacked by people inside the aircraft cabin, which is a very important factor.
The third reason is that after the air disaster occurred, the country immediately required all aircraft to implement a dual-captain system. In the past, the aircraft flight was one captain plus one co-pilot. Implementing a dual-captain system means that one captain plus one co-pilot cannot guarantee the safe driving of the aircraft. At the same time, all airlines across the country are investigating the psychological condition and family situation of the aircraft pilots, and require them to write a letter of commitment.
So my conclusion at the time was that the real cause of this aircraft accident was man-made. But what I used at the time was all logical reasoning, without so-called objective evidence. So today I will talk about objective evidence.
First, let’s analyze this report yesterday. Why did it issue this report? In fact, there is a little background. According to the provisions of the “Chicago Convention”, generally speaking, an air disaster requires the final report to be published within 12 months, but this requirement is not mandatory. Although it is not mandatory, as a contracting state, you certainly cannot ignore such provisions. So yesterday, which was one day before the 12-month deadline for the Eastern Airlines air disaster, it issued such an announcement, saying “Look, I am still investigating, it is very complex and extremely rare”. At the same time, Xinhua News Agency also interviewed experts in the aviation industry, and these experts also said that “this air disaster is different from the past air disasters, so it is understandable that the investigation time cycle is long”. In fact, these are all muddling the waters. The cause of the air disaster is different from the past, which does not mean that the investigation difficulty of the air disaster itself is high. These are two different concepts.
The current air disaster, to be honest, as long as you get the two black boxes of the aircraft cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, 99.9999999999% of the air disasters can determine the cause of the air disaster within a very short period of time. Because this is different from the early air disasters. In the early air disasters, because there were no black boxes, it was necessary to piece together the wreckage of the aircraft and then analyze which cause might have occurred. Now these two black boxes, one records the entire flight state of the aircraft, and the other records the last recording in the aircraft cabin. These two factors are attached together. To be honest, the cause of the aircraft accident is basically very easy to determine.
Then let’s analyze this report again. Through this report, you can know that they know the reason. The report said that they are now conducting four aspects of investigation, and have already conducted four aspects of investigation:
First, 100 relatively large pieces of wreckage to analyze the cause of aircraft damage.
Second, investigate the qualifications, abilities, flight operations, and management of the aircraft (owned) airline pilots.
Third, investigate air traffic control services and ground security guarantees.
Fourth, combine relevant data to analyze the final flight state of the aircraft, and use aircraft simulators and real aircraft for simulation verification.
Among them, the first and fourth items are particularly important. The first item is to put the (aircraft) wreckage together to determine the cause of the aircraft damage. In the process of investigating the air disaster, (aircraft) wreckage is put together to analyze the cause of the damage. In fact, it is not to find the cause of the air disaster, but to verify the cause of the air disaster. This is very important, because in fact, you have already deduced the cause of the aircraft through the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, and then go to the wreckage to find out whether it can correspond to the cause of the air disaster in logic. This is not to say that the cause of the air disaster is analyzed through the (aircraft) wreckage.
Second, the fourth point, combining the final flight state of the aircraft (air disaster) and relevant data, to test and verify with real aircraft and simulators. This shows that the accident investigation team knew what happened in the last minute of the aircraft a long time ago, they just used real aircraft and flight simulators for verification. Think about it, don’t they know the real cause of the aircraft (air disaster)? They know it too well, they know it completely, but they just don’t tell you, they just don’t tell the public. Why? Because if this (truth) is told to the public, it will be a huge scandal.
I have been concerned about this air disaster since it happened, because I also have some connections with the civil aviation industry, and some people are providing me with information. Putting together information from several different sources, this matter has basically been figured out. I will tell you slowly. There are a total of 3 members in the cockpit of this aircraft:
The captain’s name is Yang Hongda, who is very young, and his flight hours are only 6,709 hours.
The co-pilot’s name is Zhang Zhenping, who is 59 years old this year. He is an outstanding pilot of Eastern Airlines and a five-star pilot. He has been qualified as a captain for more than 30 years, and his flight hours are 30,000 hours, and he has never had any accidents in history.
The third person is the observer, whose name is Ni Hongtao, and his flight hours are only 556 hours in total. To put it bluntly, this Ni Hongtao may just be to make up the hours, and he needs to accumulate hours on the plane before he can slowly be promoted to co-pilot or captain.
So the real reason is this Zhang Zhenping. Zhang Zhenping is only half a year away from retirement, and he is 59 years old. He lost almost all of his life savings in the investment process, and his mood was relatively low. In addition, there was something that happened a few years ago. When he was flying to a certain airport, during the landing process, due to the fact that he did not grasp the altitude of the flight, it led to a low-altitude airspace warning. That is, when the plane entered the airport, it was too close to the ground, and the alarm facilities on the plane now sounded the alarm. According to aviation management, it is a symptom of an accident. Although no accident occurred, it is a symptom of an accident that is close to an accident. So he was demoted from captain to co-pilot for this reason.
As everyone knows, the treatment of captain and co-pilot is very different. Generally, a captain, like the Yunnan branch of Eastern Airlines, which is not particularly profitable, also has 700,000 to 800,000 yuan a year, but as a co-pilot, it becomes 200,000 to 300,000 yuan. What is even more humiliating is that the pilot on this plane is Yang Hongda, who is his apprentice, who he trained. Think about it, his apprentice is in his twenties or thirties, and he is 59 years old. He has to serve his apprentice in the aircraft cabin. How does he feel from a psychological point of view?
Now we don’t know what happened in the sky in the last minute of the plane. Some people also speculate that there was a conflict in the air, but I have not received this information. But the information I have learned before is all true. That is, he himself, first, failed in investment, usually lives in the airline, does not go home much, and divorced his wife, and has only one daughter. Second, a few years ago, because of a landing process that led to being too close to the ground, he was demoted from captain to co-pilot. Maybe because he didn’t adjust his mentality well in this process, maybe he had an unpleasant experience with other people in the cabin in the air, which eventually led him to make such an extreme choice. The final cause of the Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 air disaster was the suicide of Captain Zhang Zhenping, and 132 people perished with him.
I guess the relevant departments must think that if such news is exposed, it will definitely be a huge scandal. But in fact, from the history of air disasters in the world, air disasters caused by pilot suicide are not uncommon. Russia has experienced it, and it seems that it was last year, in 2021, and there was also an aircraft captain in an Arab country who caused an air disaster due to suicide. So as for the air disaster itself, pilot suicide is actually not unique, it does exist. But the CCP believes that this information cannot be disclosed. Once it is disclosed, everyone will point to the management and internal management mechanisms of the airline.
After I finished this program, a captain of Air China wrote to me to report. He said: In fact, our current internal management system of civil aviation is very inhumane. For example, he mentioned that another captain, because he did not grasp the flight altitude well during the landing at Pan Zhihua Airport, caused the aircraft to taxi slightly over the line. Pan Zhihua Airport is a high-platform airport, and the air is relatively thin, and if the aircraft is not controlled well, it will slide too far. According to general practice, he was banned from flying for 24 months, but due to the instructions of the superior, this pilot was banned from flying for life. This leads to everyone being in danger, not knowing where the boundary is. This is not a professional management.
The CCP covers up information in the face of such things. In this process, Boeing and NTSB have no way to break the international civil aviation treaty to expose the accident. The Eastern Airlines incident reflects the most important problem is that the international civil aviation treaty system makes the world helpless when China refuses to disclose the cause of the air disaster. The airline itself knows it and cannot disclose it, and there is also a background that international airlines dare not offend China, because China is a big aviation market, and Boeing and Airbus both hope that China can buy aircraft.
Let me tell you a story. In 2018, the Sichuan Airlines “hero captain” incident, on May 14th, a Sichuan Airlines plane suddenly had a glass burst during its flight to Tibet, and the co-pilot was hung in the air, and the crew finally returned safely. The media reported that this was a “hero crew”, but this is a shocking conspiracy. Because the accident was a low-level human error. Airbus sent a letter to the accident investigation team asking “why the co-pilot did not wear a seat belt”.
During the Sichuan Airlines incident, it took at least 10 minutes for the aircraft glass to crack and burst, allowing the pilots in the cockpit to deal with it in time, but the Sichuan Airlines incident said that it only took a few seconds from the discovery of the glass crack to the burst. The reason was that the pilot used newspapers to cover the glass, which made the glass cracks invisible, and when it burst, the person was sucked out and also damaged the instruments in the cockpit.
During the investigation of the accident investigation team, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping, instructed that this was a “hero crew”, so the investigation ended, the crew was turned into heroes, the captain was awarded 5 million, the second captain was awarded 3 million, and the co-pilot was awarded 1 million. Although the co-pilot violated the operating manual during the flight, he was still awarded 1 million. After the Sichuan Airlines incident, Airbus was afraid of the pressure from the Chinese government and left it at that, although it asked an important question “why the co-pilot did not wear a seat belt”.
This is how China handles air disasters. Back to the Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 incident, now Boeing and Airbus dare not offend China. Before March 21st, the BBC asked Boeing and NTSB, and they both said “please consult the Civil Aviation Administration of China”, and the Civil Aviation Administration of China simply ignored them. As long as the Chinese government does not announce the true cause of Flight 5735, the public will never know.
A few days ago, the Civil Aviation Administration of China website issued an announcement, and someone applied to make the cockpit voice recorder of Flight 5735 public. Once the cockpit voice recorder is made public, all the truth will be revealed. But the Civil Aviation Administration of China refused, saying that it was a state secret. Anything that the Chinese government does not want you to know is a secret. Here, I would like to tell you one last thing. Whether this accident was ultimately man-made, there is also a standard. This book is a compilation of all civil aircraft accidents regularly compiled by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, and it is compiled every few years. I bought it at a small stall in Japan, “Secret Collection”. But there is a principle in the book, that air disasters caused by human factors are not included. Do you all know the 57 air disaster? The 57 air disaster is not in this book. Because it says that the 57 air disaster was caused by human factors, it is not made public. So you can read this book in two years, and it will definitely not be included in the air disaster of Eastern Airlines Flight 5735, because it was caused by human factors, and it was caused by the suicide of the co-pilot.
Okay, I’ll stop here today, thank you all.
好，我今天就讲到这里，谢谢大家。
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