The China Eastern Airlines' B-737/800 plane departing from Kunming and bound for Guangzhou (flight MU5735), which crashed on March 21st with 132 people on board, would have reached the speed of sound as it crashed, starting to lose pieces before hitting the mountains of Guanxi. One more detail for the team of investigators to which the Chinese government has entrusted the investigation of the plane crash. 

This is what emerges from a reconstruction elaborated by the newspaper "Il Corriere della Sera", according to which the aircraft would have reached 1125 kilometers per hour while descending in a dive to an altitude of 2390 meters. A situation that is also confirmed by the reconstruction made by the news agency "Bloomberg". This is a speed that exceeded the maximum estimated speed to ensure the structural strength of the aircraft.

According to the reconstruction, therefore, one minute before crashing the B-737/800 had reached a record speed of 0.945 Mach, close to the sound barrier. This resulted in the detachment of the wing tip of a wing found several kilometers away from the impact site. It remains to be understood the cause of the accident: a technical failure or a voluntary act of the commander, Yang Hongda, and what would the co-pilot, Zhang Zhengping, have done? Many questions that will be tried to answer in the coming weeks and months.

On the same subject see also the articles published by AVIONEWS 1 and 2.