It was China’s worst aircraft accident in a long time: On March 21, a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 crashed on its way from Kunming to Canton, killing 132 people in the impact. It is still unclear what caused the crash, because the country’s official bodies are silent. But now it has Wall Street Journal with a report caused a stir in the country: According to this, someone on board intentionally steered the plane into the ground.
In a Hong Kong report South China Morning Post a relative appealed to the Chinese airline to make the previous findings known. “If that’s true, it’s so terrible,” said the man, surnamed Ouyang, who lost his 18-year-old nephew, a student from Guangzhou, in the crash. “China Eastern Airlines must give us a clear explanation.”
The denial as part of less information
The English language state newspaper Global Times, which is often used as a mouthpiece for embassies abroad, citing people involved in the investigations by the China Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC) together with the US Transportation Security Administration (NTSB), reported that “no relevant information from the investigations was given to the media ” had been. In April, Chinese authorities firmly dismissed similar reports as “rumours”.
The denial was one of the few pieces of information that was published in the state’s online media on Monday, despite the great interest among the population.
To the Wall Street Journal according to the analyzes of the flight data recorder have shown that a control impulse caused the nosedive of the Boeing 737. The machine had previously been at a normal cruising altitude of 29,000 feet (nearly nine kilometers), and there was nothing to indicate a technical problem. Communication with air traffic control was also normal. Another indication that no technical causes have been found, at least so far, is that neither the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) nor the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) nor Boeing itself have issued any warnings. This would then be international practice. On April 20, the CAAC only pointed out in a summary of an initial accident report, which according to international protocol always has to be published after one month, that the analysis of the data was still ongoing. The report itself is classified.
problems with enlightenment
It would not be the first time that affected airlines and states have found it difficult to realize that pilots are intentionally crashing a plane. Egypt reacted with protests when American authorities explained the crash of an Egyptair Boeing 767 in 1999 by saying that one of the pilots had steered the plane into the sea. This is also a possible explanation for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014, which has not yet been reconstructed and is hardly accepted in Malaysia. The Germanwings case was different in 2015: At that time, it was clear within a few days that the co-pilot was flying the machine into a mountain.
In China’s social media, there were noticeably few contributions to the report of the Wall Street Journal find, an indication that the censors deleted many comments. Searches for “China Eastern” and “China Eastern Blackbox” were also censored. On Wechat, the main communication platform in China, users could not share the article with other users.
In the few comments that remained on the Chinese short message service Weibo, Internet users above all doubted the credibility of the US newspaper, which is not high as a foreign medium, which is why caution is advised. Another post said, “US media is not to be trusted, our officials are not to be trusted. There is no one in this world to believe anymore.” One user called for patience, saying it was better to wait for the official report from the flight regulator. Another answered: “How long, 100 years?”