Holy crap! I thought Boeing fixed the 737 MAX issue... Do you know if this is the same type of plane, or a different model?

2 minutes ago, toolg said:

Holy crap! I thought Boeing fixed the 737 MAX issue... Do you know if this is the same type of plane, or a different model?

It wasn't a MAX. It was a ~7 year old plane.

its not a 737 max.  Its a 737-89P.  Based on the flight data, they lost a ton of altitude and then leveled out and went into a complete nose dive.  Wonder if this was a pilot killing himself and the passengers?  Won't know for some time the cause.

The video makes it hard to think it was being flown anywhere but right into the ground. It would not naturally do that if say there were no power.

26 minutes ago, Toastrel said:

The video makes it hard to think it was being flown anywhere but right into the ground. It would not naturally do that if say there were no power.

I thought large planes pretty much drop like a brick once you remove propulsion.  

 

Edit: Interesting, it does appear they can "glide" for a little while.

17 minutes ago, paco said:

I thought large planes pretty much drop like a brick once you remove propulsion.  

 

Edit: Interesting, it does appear they can "glide" for a little while.

Almost all fixed-wing aircraft can sustain lift if the control surfaces are still functional. You'll obviously slowly bleed speed and altitude while doing so, but it's actually part of every pilot's training to safely land after the instructor cuts the engines miles away from the airport. 

Helicopters are a different story.

Falling objects tumble. If the wings were still on it, it had be intentional.

34 minutes ago, paco said:

I thought large planes pretty much drop like a brick once you remove propulsion.  

 

Edit: Interesting, it does appear they can "glide" for a little while.

Pretty sure it's all about airspeed. If the pilot can keep it above the crafts "stall speed", than the plane will maintain lift. I assume the stall speed is different for each type of plane. 

I just watched a couple different angles. You don't see any evidence of wings or a tail. Though it could be that it was just low quality, bad viewing angle.

Assuming some of all of them sheared off you start to think about overspeeding. Could have been a combination of that and maybe an attempted recovery where the integrity of the airframe completely failed and you basically have what you see in the video, which maybe was a fuselage in free-fall.

37 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Almost all fixed-wing aircraft can sustain lift if the control surfaces are still functional. You'll obviously slowly bleed speed and altitude while doing so, but it's actually part of every pilot's training to safely land after the instructor cuts the engines miles away from the airport. 

Helicopters are a different story.

We went through the helicopter scenario when Kobe was killed in that crash.  Helicopters can glide back down to the ground without power and pilots are taught how to do this.  It was explained that it's the same principles at play when you toss a maple tree seed in the air and it spins and gently floats back down to the ground.

That plane was in a straight on nose dive.  Even in the event of engine failure you'd have to believe the pilot would try to keep the plane in the air and attempt to glide it somewhere to a landing.  Wasn't it a few years ago (maybe longer?) when a pilot in Europe purposely flew the plane into a mountain and crew members were trying to break down the door to the cabin to stop him?  I thought they made adjustments so that couldn't happen again.

Weird how, going by the flight data, the plane went from 29K feet to 7400 in 72 seconds then went up to 8600 before dropping to 3200 in 30 seconds.

 

6 minutes ago, Green_Guinness said:

We went through the helicopter scenario when Kobe was killed in that crash.  Helicopters can glide back down to the ground without power and pilots are taught how to do this.  It was explained that it's the same principles at play when you toss a maple tree seed in the air and it spins and gently floats back down to the ground.

That plane was in a straight on nose dive.  Even in the event of engine failure you'd have to believe the pilot would try to keep the plane in the air and attempt to glide it somewhere to a landing.  Wasn't it a few years ago (maybe longer?) when a pilot in Europe purposely flew the plane into a mountain and crew members were trying to break down the door to the cabin to stop him?  I thought they made adjustments so that couldn't happen again.

Weird how, going by the flight data, the plane went from 29K feet to 7400 in 72 seconds then went up to 8600 before dropping to 3200 in 30 seconds.

 

Not sure it's quite as gentle or shall I say "controlled" as it is with a fixed wing aircraft though. 

Just now, we_gotta_believe said:

Not sure it's quite as gentle or shall I say "controlled" as it is with a fixed wing aircraft though. 

Yup, probably not the way it actually happens.  I'm sure it's a turbulent and scary ride.  If the pilot is any good then it shouldn't just fall out of the sky like a stone, though. 

 

1 minute ago, Green_Guinness said:

Yup, probably not the way it actually happens.  I'm sure it's a turbulent and scary ride.  If the pilot is any good then it shouldn't just fall out of the sky like a stone, though. 

 

Agreed.

With all this talk about World War III, I'm worried this was a training exercise for another attack on Pearl Harbor.  

One thing I think we can all agree on though: Biden's liberal policies did this

How Could One of the World’s Favorite Jets Just Plunge to Earth Like a Ballistic Missile?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-could-a-boeing-737-plunge-to-earth-like-a-ballistic-missile?ref=scroll

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10637393/Chinese-pilot-regained-consciousness-G-forces-knocked-crew.html

 

Quote

She added it is 'unusual' that the co-pilot had 30,000 hours of flight experience while the pilot only had 7,000 hours under their belt. 

A third trainee pilot, who only had a few hundred ours of flying experience, was also on the plane.

 

‘’Only’’ 7000 hours

Quote

Chinese pilot 'may have regained consciousness' after G-forces knocked out crew 'and tried to save plunging plane' seconds before Boeing 737-800 smashed into mountainside killing all 132 on board

Btw, my oldest says that the speculation among he and his pilot friends is that one of them was trying to take it down and kill everyone, while the other was fighting him.

10 hours ago, The_Omega said:

‘’Only’’ 7000 hours

Btw, my oldest says that the speculation among he and his pilot friends is that one of them was trying to take it down and kill everyone, while the other was fighting him.

I’ll go with the trainee 

10 hours ago, The_Omega said:

‘’Only’’ 7000 hours

Btw, my oldest says that the speculation among he and his pilot friends is that one of them was trying to take it down and kill everyone, while the other was fighting him.

The bare minimum is 1,500 hours.

47 minutes ago, Toastrel said:

The bare minimum is 1,500 hours.

Right. Then 500 hrs/year after that. Even you can do the math and see that 7000 hours is a fairly experienced pilot.

1 hour ago, paco said:

I’ll go with the trainee 

As the mass murderer or the attempted hero? Sadly, being China, we’ll possibly never know what really happened.

1 minute ago, The_Omega said:

Right. Then 500 hrs/year after that. Even you can do the math and see that 7000 hours is a fairly experienced pilot.

Depends. How many in that jet? 1500 hours is about 2 years experience.

Quote

The plane was cruising at 29,100 feet and began a sharp descent after 2:20 p.m., recovering more than 1,000 feet briefly — then continuing to dive again before it lost contact. It fell more than 25,000 feet in about two minutes.

 

Wow