Boeing 737-800 crashes in China -- is the airplane safe?
132 people were on the Boeing 737-800 aircraft
Barron's Roundtable senior writer Al Root says the pandemic has 'blown a big hole' in Boeing's balance sheet
A Boeing 737-800 operated by China Eastern suddenly plunged from an altitude of about 30,000 feet on Monday in China's Guangxi region, likely killing all 132 people on board.
The 737-800 is part of Boeing's Next Generation (NG) series and the predecessor to the company's beleaguered 737 MAX model, which was grounded worldwide in 2019 after two fatal crashes that killed 346 people.
Despite Boeing's recent troubles, the 737 series has one of the best safety records of all aircraft, retired pilot and Aero Consulting Experts CEO Russ Aimer said.
"Unfortunately accidents happen, but if you really count the number of flights every day, everywhere around the world, these airplanes, 737s in particular, have an amazing safety record," Aimer told FOX Business.
The general area of forest where the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 crashed in the Guangxi Region, China is seen in the screengrab from a video released on March 21, 2022. (China Fire Department/Handout via REUTERS)
Plane debris is seen at the site where a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane flying from Kunming to Guangzhou crashed, in Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China March 21, 2022. (cnsphoto via REUTERS)
Plane debris is seen at the site where a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane crashed. flying from Kunming to Guangzhou crashed, in Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China March 21, 2022. (China Daily via REUTERS)
There are several hundred 737s in use in the United States, including 265 with American Airlines, 205 with Southwest Airlines, and 136 with United Airlines, according to Cirium data.
The Boeing 737 NG models are the third-safest planes in the world with a crash rate of just .07 crashes per million flights through 2017, according to the nonprofit Airsafe.
While investigations revealed that the 737 MAX crashes were caused by a software problem with the planes' Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, it could be weeks or months before officials figure out what went wrong with Monday's crash.
BOEING, QATAR AIRWAYS STRIKE DEAL FOR 777-8 FREIGHTER, 737 MAX 10 ORDERS
The plane, which was delivered to China Eastern in 2015, was about an hour into its flight on Monday when it suddenly plunged roughly 30,000 feet into a remote Chinese mountainside.
Emergency workers found one of two black boxes on the aircraft on Wednesday, the black box that contains the cockpit recordings.
"An initial inspection showed that the exterior of the recorder has been severely damaged, but the storage units, while also damaged to some extent, are relatively complete," Civil Aviation Administration of China official Zhu Tao said Wednesday.
A Delta Air Lines Boeing 737-800 plane sits at the gate at LAX airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 1, 2018. (REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson)
Aimer said the cockpit recordings "will give us an exceptional amount of information," but the other black box containing a data recorder will also be important to the investigation.
"The data recorder records just about everything that happens in that aircraft. All the position of the flight controls, the altitude, speed, everything technical that happens in that airplane," Aimer, who has more than 34,000 hours of worldwide heavy jet flight experience and worked at Boeing as a flight training captain, said this week.
China Eastern and its subsidiaries are grounding more than 200 Boeing 737-800 jets while the investigation takes place.
GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE
Chinese authorities invited the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board to be a part of the investigation, but it is unclear when U.S. investigators will be able to get to China due to COVID-19 quarantine rules.
Reuters contributed to this report.