Originally Posted by
Vhammer
Fortunately the throttles and flight controls are not interlinked.. With over 10K hours on the 737 including the 8oo and Max, and some training in accident investigation, I'd like to offer a few observations. First off, I dont believe it is possible to reach the ground in two minutes without the throttles pushed up. No one keeps power in , in a dive. Its instinctive for anyone thats been flying for any period of time to reduce power to idle. Now with power at idle I dont think even vertical you can descend 29K feet in two minutes. Now to get vertical, you would have to have a condition where not only are the flight controls unresponsive but they have had to go into a full nose down position by themselves, and be resisting input to reduce the angle of descent. which without some kind of assistance would not normally occur on their own. OR you would have have to a failure of the flight control system as well. So we are talking two separate events, by systems not related. except by the person flying. I could be grossly mistaken, but I dont believe you will find much data coming out of China that isn't manufactured. The airplane has been in service 7 years, so bugs have been worked out. This leaves one of several possibilites. Crew action, maintenance or some external factor.
29000 feet in two minutes is only about 150kts - I would have thought that would be easily achievable in a vertical dive with power off . . .