Possibly a ‘terror attack’: Aviation expert assess China Eastern Airlines crash

Sky News aviation expert Byron Bailey says passengers aboard the crashed China Eastern Airlines flight would have been “screaming all the way down” as the plane plunged into the side of a mountain.

Mr Bailey said the Boeing 737-800 had “perfect” flight conditions given the temperature and wind speeds.

All 132 passengers on board the flight are believed to be dead after the plane plunged into a forest over China’s Guangxi province on Monday afternoon, local time.

“Thunderstorms, that’s the only big worry these days; you avoid thunderstorms,” he said.

“As far as the malfunction of the airplane goes, the 737-800 is just such a basic airplane.

“It’s hard to imagine anything that could go wrong that could cause the airplane to lose control in such a fashion.

“They would’ve been screaming all the way down for that three minutes.”

Mr Bailey suggested the crash could have been caused by human intervention, but the flight data recorder was needed to properly assess the catastrophe.

“When you think about it, they have a big problem with Uighurs, so it could possibly have been a terror attack,” he said.

“If the tail hasn’t fallen off, which I just don’t think has happened, then it has to be human intervention, I think.

“It could well be that there was a fight going on in the cockpit where one guy was trying to commit suicide, and the other was trying to stop him.”