For more than four years, the final moments of China Eastern Flight 5735 were shrouded in mystery. There were very few clues about the sudden fall, from 29,000 feet above sea level, which left no survivors.
Now, new data from the Boeing 737 indicates that the crash was not caused by an unexpected failure. According to aviation experts, the crash was caused deliberately, from the cockpit, after what appears to have been a dispute over control of the aircraft.
The plane, operated by very experienced pilots, was traveling between Kunming, in southwestern China, and Guangzhou, when it plummeted almost vertically into a hillside. The impact was so strong that parts of the fuselage were buried up to 18 meters deep.
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According to the report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the United States’ transportation safety agency, the dive began when one pilot — or both — activated the fuel cutoff levers of both engines in mid-flight. The information comes from Jeff Guzzetti, a former accident investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the NTSB itself. These levers basically work like fuel switches.
By lowering both levers at the same time, the fuel flow to the engines was interrupted, shutting them down, explains Guzzetti.
Almost immediately, data from onboard systems show, the plane entered an extremely steep dive and made at least a complete 360-degree turn, according to Guzzetti. The information indicates that the control wheels in the cockpit — one in front of the commander and the other in front of the copilot — were turned in order to cause this roll. (These control wheels are similar to a car steering wheel, but they are used to tilt the plane and make turns.)
The sudden, irregular and alternating movement of these wheels suggests that at least two people were trying to turn them in opposite directions. This may indicate that the two pilots were competing for control of the same wheel or that the commander and co-pilot were pushing their own controls in different directions — they are connected to each other and, under normal conditions, move together.
“Aggressive movements to put the nose of the plane down and make it roll in such an extreme way tells me that this was an intentional act,” says Guzzetti.
Data on the accident, one of the most serious in China in more than a decade, was released following a request made to the NTSB via the Freedom of Information Act. The American agency had helped with the investigation, including recovering data from the flight recorder — one of the so-called “black boxes”.
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It’s unclear who made the request or exactly when the report was released. The document is available on the NTSB website.
The topic is especially sensitive in China, where the government has released very few details of the investigation itself. Xi Jinping, the country’s most powerful leader in decades, has been tightening control over the flow of information, especially in major disasters, seen as potential threats to social stability. In the days following the crash, Chinese authorities censored reporting and discussion about the case.
China’s Foreign Ministry and the country’s Civil Aviation Administration did not respond to faxed questions about the new data. In 2024, the aviation authority had reported that pilots and flight attendants underwent a medical examination before flying that day.
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Guzzetti states that other parts of the data reinforce the hypothesis of a possible fight between the two pilots over the plane’s controls.
“If you’re going to roll the plane, it’s usually a smooth roll,” he says. “In this case, the control wheel goes one way, then the other, and so on. That, to me, is a sign of a struggle.”
John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and former airline pilot, agrees that the fuel shutoff and other commands came from the cockpit, possibly from a single pilot. “A pilot can cut off the fuel to both engines at the same time, simply by moving the levers from the ‘run’ position to the ‘cutoff’ position”, he explains.
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For him, the irregular movement of the control wheel suggests that there was a dispute over the controls, “but the evidence is not entirely conclusive”.
The NTSB also reported that the flight data recorder stopped working when the plane was still falling, at around 26,000 feet. Without the engines running, there was no electricity to keep the equipment running.
The recorder was badly damaged in the impact, according to the agency. Information from the cockpit voice recorder — the other black box — was not disclosed.
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The data also shows that, in the initial phase of the fall, the plane descended at an angle of up to 40 degrees — much steeper than the few degrees used in a normal descent, according to Guzzetti.
“It’s the type of maneuver you see in aerobatic planes at an air show”, he compares. “For the passengers, it must have been a huge shock, given the level of force that such extreme maneuvers cause.”
c.2026 The New York Times Company
