A premeditated crash

The perpetrator of this air disaster was Zhang Zhengping, the co-pilot of Flight 5735. Zhang Zhengping, 59, felt gloomy about life and his future due to investment failures, divorce, and other reasons. More importantly, he was demoted from captain to co-pilot by Eastern Airlines in the previous few years due to some reason, and his treatment plummeted, leading to extreme psychological imbalance.

On the day of the incident, the captain was Yang Hongda, who was only about 30 years old. Yang Hongda was not only Zhang Zhengping’s apprentice, but his father was also the leader who handled Zhang Zhengping’s demotion. Zhang Zhengping, taking advantage of Yang Hongda’s absence to the restroom, locked the cockpit door and then piloted the plane to directly dive towards the ground in a suicidal manner, resulting in the burial of 131 people on board.

Some indirect evidence had already supported this inference earlier. After the air disaster, the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued a document requiring all domestic flights to implement a dual-captain system, with at least two people in the cockpit; at the same time, airlines across the country began to investigate and report the psychological status of pilots. The documents released by the NTSB this time provided decisive direct evidence.

The Missing 90 Seconds and the Stalled Investigation by the Chinese Side

The air disaster occurred on March 21, 2022. According to the data released by the Chinese side, the flight took off at 13:16, deviated from the planned route at 14:20:05; at 14:21:40, the flight disappeared from the radar record. In less than a minute, the aircraft’s altitude plummeted to 3380 meters, with a relative ground speed close to the speed of sound. The entire process lasted only 90 seconds.

On March 20, 2023 and 2024, the Civil Aviation Administration of China successively issued situation descriptions, excluding external problems such as mechanical and weather, but never mentioned the real cause. In 2025 and 2026, the official stopped issuing explanations. In July 2025, the Civil Aviation Administration rejected the public’s information disclosure application on the grounds of “endangering national security and social stability.”

The U.S. was forced to release the data

The turning point came in January 2026, when a Chinese citizen applied to the NTSB for the release of the files under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. According to the International Civil Aviation Convention, if the main investigating country has not released the report two years after the air disaster, the relevant parties involved in the investigation (such as the U.S.) have the right to release the data they have.

After three months of desensitization, the NTSB provided the applicant with 1959 pages of files, including core data and correspondence.

The Desperate Details Revealed by the Flight Data Recorder

The most core is the analysis result of the flight data recorder (FDR). The FDR revealed that at 14:20:55, the oil circuits of the two engines were closed simultaneously, with a time difference of less than one second. On the Boeing 737-800 model, this requires unlocking the safety insurance and performing a two-step lever operation, which is absolutely impossible to be a misoperation.

Industry insiders pointed out: Zhang Zhengping closed the dual-engine oil circuits at the same time not only to accelerate the dive, but also to completely cut off the power supply of the passenger cabin, causing the plane to suddenly fall into darkness and severe inverted weightlessness, completely cutting off the possibility of external personnel intervening by breaking the door.

The Still Sealed Cockpit Voice Recorder

Although the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was severely damaged, it has also been perfectly repaired. The CVR completely recorded all the sounds until the last second of the crash. The documents show that the Chinese side once led a team from the Civil Aviation Administration to the United States to listen to the recording. Due to legal restrictions, the NTSB has not yet released this part of the audio data to individuals. This means that the air traffic control calls, the crew’s banging on the door outside the cabin, and desperate calls are still locked in the archives.

The Truth Cannot Be Hidden Forever

The real cause of this air disaster is already known within the civil aviation industry. Covering up the truth as a black hole not only cannot stop those who want to follow suit, but also makes the public lose the opportunity to supervise and reflect on the system. Four years have passed since the air disaster, and the puzzle of the truth is being pieced together through the data gaps across the ocean.