According to the released data, the fuel control switches for both engines on the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 moved from RUN to CUTOFF approximately 23 seconds before the FDR stopped recording. The autopilot disengaged at the same point. Roughly three seconds later, one of the cockpit yokes was pushed forward, sending the aircraft into the near-vertical descent that has defined the publicly known footage of the loss.

What the China Eastern MU5735 data shows

The NTSB release, as reported by CNN, is a partial dataset rather than a finding of cause. It does not establish which pilot manipulated the fuel switches or the yoke, nor does it rule out a system fault that could have driven the cockpit indications. China’s Civil Aviation Administration leads the official MU5735 investigation; CAAC has not publicly responded to the FOIA release as of publication.

AirLive and Simple Flying both report the FDR contents are consistent with publicly available trajectory data — a steep, sustained nose-down attitude that did not recover. The aircraft was at FL290 when control was lost on a routine domestic sector from Kunming to Guangzhou.

The Boeing 737-800 fuel control switches sit on the centre pedestal between the two pilots and require a deliberate movement past a detent to leave the RUN position. Industry sources describe inadvertent activation as unlikely but not impossible. The same family of switches is at the centre of the still-open investigation into the 2024 Air India 171 fuel-cutoff event, and the NTSB has now publicly tied data on two separate fatal events to the same cockpit input.

China Eastern MU5735 investigation timeline

China’s investigation into MU5735 is now in its fifth year. The CAAC has issued two preliminary statements since the crash but has not published a final report. Chinese officials previously declined to share complete FDR contents internationally, which is why a third-party FDR analysis emerged through the NTSB FOIA process rather than through CAAC’s own investigation channels.

The aircraft, registered B-1791 and ten years old at the time of the loss, had no recorded airworthiness issues prior to the flight. Maintenance records, crew duty records and any cockpit voice recorder content remain under CAAC seal. Independent analysts have been working from limited Chinese disclosures since 2022, and the NTSB material is the first authoritative timeline of the cockpit inputs in the final seconds of recording.

Why a US agency held Chinese flight data at all

The route by which this material became public is worth understanding, because it is unusual and it explains the friction.

Under ICAO Annex 13, the state where an accident occurs leads the investigation — here, China. But the states of design and manufacture are entitled to appoint accredited representatives, and the Boeing 737 and its engines are US products. That entitlement is how the NTSB came to hold data from a crash in Guangxi in the first place: not as an investigator in its own right, but as a participant supporting the CAAC’s inquiry.

Records held by a US federal agency are subject to the Freedom of Information Act regardless of where they originated. So a FOIA request filed in January 2026 reached material that China’s own investigation had not published — which is why the first authoritative public account of the final seconds came out of Washington rather than Beijing, four years after the loss.

What the release changes

The NTSB FOIA release does not close the China Eastern MU5735 investigation, but it does shift the public discussion. AeroTime characterises the pattern of inputs as suggestive of a deliberate act in the cockpit; the NTSB material itself stops short of that conclusion.

For aviation safety investigators, the release also has procedural implications. It is unusual for FDR contents from a non-US accident to surface via a US FOIA request before the host-state investigator has published. CAAC’s response — whether it now releases its own technical analysis, contests the NTSB material, or maintains silence — will set a template for how future Chinese-host accident investigations interact with international counterparts.

The Air India 171 inquiry remains separately open, and the cockpit-action pattern in that case is being analysed independently. Pilot-input questions on the 737 family are likely to be a continuing thread for both investigators and operators through 2026.

AircrewNews will update this article when CAAC issues a public response or releases its own analysis of the China Eastern MU5735 flight data.

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Engine failure as the SWISS A330 rejects takeoff

When the SWISS A330 rejects takeoff, flight LX147 was bound for Zurich with 228 passengers, four infants and 13 crew. The aircraft, registered HB-JHK, accelerated to about 104 knots before the crew rejected the takeoff. The airline confirmed the timeline in a newsroom statement.

Smoke was visible on the left side, where the No. 1 engine had failed. Ground crews then reported a fire near the right main landing gear after the aircraft came to a stop on the runway.

Why 104 knots matters

Rejected takeoffs are categorised by speed, because the consequences scale with kinetic energy — and where a SWISS A330 rejects takeoff at 104 knots, that energy is considerable. Below roughly 80 knots an abort is a low-risk decision and crews will reject for relatively minor indications. Above that, the calculus tightens as the aircraft approaches V1 — the decision speed past which the takeoff must be continued, because there is no longer enough runway remaining to stop.

At about 104 knots on a widebody near its maximum takeoff weight for a long sector to Zurich, this was a high-speed reject. That means maximum braking, ground spoilers and thrust reverse, dumping the aircraft’s energy into the brakes as heat over a few seconds. Carbon brake stacks on a heavy A330 can reach several hundred degrees in a high-speed abort, and heat soaks into the wheel and tyre assembly for some minutes afterwards, which is precisely when a gear-area fire becomes a live risk. Wheels are fitted with fusible plugs designed to deflate a tyre in a controlled way rather than let it burst under that heat load.

Two events on opposite sides of the aircraft

The detail investigators will focus on is geometry. The engine that failed was the No. 1 — the left engine. The fire was reported near the right main landing gear. Those are opposite sides of the aircraft, which makes a simple mechanical chain between the two harder to draw.

Two broad possibilities present themselves, and the published information does not distinguish between them. Brake energy from the reject alone can produce a gear-area fire with no connection to the engine event beyond having caused the abort. Alternatively, a common factor or a sequence not yet public could link them. Establishing which is exactly the sort of question a formal investigation exists to answer, and it would be wrong to assume either from the outside.

Evacuation and aftermath

The crew commanded an emergency evacuation via the slides. SWISS confirmed six minor injuries; no serious injuries were reported. Emergency services secured the area before the aircraft was removed from the runway for technical inspection.

A rejected takeoff also stops the aircraft on the runway rather than clearing it, which at a hub of Delhi’s size has immediate knock-on effects. A disabled widebody has to be inspected, its brakes allowed to cool and its tyres checked before it can be towed, and until then the runway is out of service — pushing arrivals into holding and departures into ground delay across the evening bank.

Minor injuries in a slide evacuation are common rather than exceptional. An A330 slide deploys at a steep angle from a door sill several metres above the ground, and an evacuation of more than 240 people down them at speed reliably produces sprains, abrasions and the occasional fracture. Six minor injuries across that number of occupants is, in evacuation terms, an orderly outcome.

What investigators watch after a SWISS A330 rejects takeoff

Simple Flying and The Aviation Herald reported the incident on the carrier’s evening Zurich rotation. Both noted that the No. 1 engine failure and the gear-area fire — on opposite sides of the aircraft — would be central questions for investigators.

Jurisdiction follows ICAO Annex 13: India is the state of occurrence and the DGCA leads, while Switzerland as the state of the operator and of registry is entitled to appoint an accredited representative, as are the states of design and manufacture for the airframe and engines.

SWISS said the A330 has been removed from service pending the DGCA investigation. The carrier has not commented on a likely return-to-service date or on the relationship between the engine failure and the fire. AircrewNews will update this story as official findings are released.

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