A year before the tragic crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, a Boeing 777 jumbo passenger plane carrying 141 Chinese students suffered an unexpected crash over San Francisco. However, several Americans*** who were originally scheduled to be on this passenger plane changed their itinerary at the last minute and decided to return home 20 minutes early. Behind this series of seemingly accidental coincidences, is this air crash a natural disaster or man-made?
On July 6, 2013, South Korea's AirAsia Flight 214 departed from Incheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea, and the destination was San Francisco, USA. The flight carried a total of 307 people, 141 of whom were Chinese nationals, including a group of students who had traveled to the United States to participate in a summer camp. The journey was smooth at first, as the plane arrived over the San Francisco airport, and after obtaining a landing permit, the captain slowed down and landed slowly along the runway.
Just when the plane was only 500 meters from the ground, a warning signal came from the cockpit, indicating that the plane was not having enough thrust and was too close to the ground. At the critical moment, the captain took decisive measures to raise the altitude of the aircraft, intending to carry out a go-around flight to save the danger, but unfortunately it was too late, with a loud bang, the tail touched the ground, separated from the fuselage, and the plane was shattered. At this time, due to the serious damage to the fuselage, the engine stalled, and the entire cabin was instantly filled with smoke, and a raging fire was already burning on the right-hand side.
One of the flight attendants rushed into the fire alone to try to open the hatch and release the emergency rescue device to help the passengers escape. However, due to the failure of the emergency slide, many passengers had no choice but to jump out of the window to escape the scene, struggling to survive in the raging rain. Fortunately, a total of 98% of the survivors were successfully evacuated. When a large-scale fire hit the fuselage, firefighters rushed to the scene to help, successfully rescued a total of 5 injured passengers, and more than 50 people were seriously injured, and 3 people died.
Immediately after the plane crashed, the news spread rapidly and attracted global attention. Upon hearing the news, the relevant departments of the United States immediately intervened in the investigation and dispatched experts in relevant fields to conduct in-depth analysis. Based on previous experience, the team of experts first carried out a comprehensive inspection of the main components of the aircraft, but unfortunately did not find any obvious faults. After that, the investigators carried out an exhaustive examination of the equipment of the airport's control tower. The operation of the runway at the airport was clear and unusual, and there were no obvious problems with the aircraft itself and the external environment on the whole.
At this critical moment, a figure that has attracted much attention has surfaced, she is Ms. Shirley Sandberg, a famous female entrepreneur who previously worked in the Clinton** Finance Department in the United States and Facebook. She was scheduled to take the same flight, but shortly before takeoff, she decided to change to a United Airlines flight, which was 20 minutes ahead of the scheduled flight, and successfully landed in San Francisco to avoid the crisis, and the last-minute change of flight allowed Ms. Sandberg to successfully defuse the crash.
Although it seems to be pure luck, such a coincidence combined with the bizarre crash of the passenger plane carried by 141 Chinese students, and the United States**, which arrived in the United States ahead of schedule, have made more and more people suspect that there may be a well-planned conspiracy behind this incident. Their main target was probably the brilliant high-tech talent on that plane.
* They pointed the finger at Ms. Shirley Sandberg, however, she clarified this, explaining that she and her family had indeed planned to take the tragic flight, but after purchasing the ticket, they were surprised to find that they had accumulated enough points at United Express to redeem the family's flight, so she decided to change her itinerary and arrive in San Francisco about 20 minutes early. However, although her explanation seemed conclusive, it still did not dispel the suspicions, and the investigation team could only hope that the "black box" inside the aircraft would be able to obtain a complete picture of the situation throughout the flight with the help of the data recorded by the plane.
Soon, the astonishing fact was finally revealed, it turned out that just a minute before the plane was about to land, the engine speed suddenly dropped sharply, which directly led to the serious lack of thrust of the aircraft and failed to meet the approach standards. Prior to this, the possibility of a failure of the engine itself had been ruled out, so the source of the problem apparently lay in the pilot's handling skills. Based on a detailed analysis of the pilot's voice recordings in the cockpit, investigators found that the pilot had attempted to stop moving forward at the time of the incident, but because the closest distance between the head of the plane and the ground was very short, the uncontrollable speed made it impossible for them to go back to flight.
Eventually, the tail of the plane hit the breakwater to announce the crash. In addition, there is another point that is deeply doubtful, that is, during the whole process of the air crash, the pilot and the co-pilot have not been cross-checked, and the captain Mr. Li Gangguo is a flying star with more than 40 years of flying experience and a total of nearly 10,000 hours. On the Boeing 777, the precious flight time is only a short 35 hours.
In the case of Asiana Airlines' forced landing, the captain closed the autopilot and automatic throttle due to improper operation, and switched to manual piloting, and due to the smooth operation of the automatic landing guidance equipment, the flight altitude reached nearly 490 meters, which caused a tragic consequence, which undoubtedly added an indelible regret to this voyage.
In addition, during the entire landing process, the captain and co-pilot did not cross-check in accordance with the regulations, so that they failed to warn each other when the flight altitude was too low, but such human negligence was the fuse that ignited public sentiment, and Asiana Airlines was strongly criticized and abused by the public. The airline actively apologized publicly to all passengers in the midst of a major crisis, and although they were punished by a 45-day suspension on San Francisco routes, some still felt that the punishment did not really touch its pain points.
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