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.
Seriously, you need to think about that. We can maintain 310 kts in a normal descent with engines at idle. With a vertical flight path the aircraft will keep accelerating at 9.8m2 until it reaches its terminal velocity, somewhere near Mach 1. Re-read FDR's post earlier. He's an actual test pilot, and he explains what happens when in the transonic regions just above the normal envelope
An aircraft seven years old isn’t one that has the bugs worked out. Its one, especially if barely used in two years, that will develop the
usual litany of defects and rectifications.
27 years all variants 737 on four continents.