9 minutes after takeoff, the plane crashed, killing 160 passengers: Fault in the plug

A mistake when plugging in the plug on the flight caused the plane to plunge to the ground, killing 160 passengers.

On the early morning of June 1994, the villagers of Chuitou village, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China, were working in the fields when they suddenly heard a loud noise coming from the sky. Then, a number of banknotes, jewelry and other strange objects suddenly fell from the air. Thinking that this is a gift from God, the villagers happily gathered and scrambled to pick it up.

However, just a few minutes later, the crowd quickly dispersed with extreme panic when witnessing a large burning object also rushing from the sky to the San Ha River.

People witnessed the plane crash at close range

Although extremely curious about this rare phenomenon, no one dared to approach the scene, they quickly alerted the local police to the scene to handle the incident.

Little did the villagers know: What they had just witnessed was one of the deadliest plane crashes in Chinese aviation history.

The flight of death

As usual, at exactly 8:15 am, flight WH2303 departed from Xianyang airport, Xi'an carrying 146 passengers and 14 crew members to Guangzhou city.

However, after only 24 seconds, the plane began to wobble, deviating 20 degrees from the safe balance, and there was an unusual noise coming from the fuselage.

In the plane cabin, passengers began to panic, the flight attendant quickly reassured the passengers and explained that this is a common phenomenon when the wind flow is unstable, it is not a cause for concern. seat belt.

Controlling the plane are 3 experienced pilots, they calmly handle the situation, let the plane continue to fly high at a speed of 400km/h. However, even after reaching the stratosphere, the shaking of the plane did not subside, but became more severe.

Just 24 seconds after takeoff, the plane appeared abnormal

The plane was deviating more and more from the standard balance, the captain switched the plane to autopilot, and ordered to check the operating equipment, hoping to improve the current situation. . However, the plane became more and more difficult to control, the captain was forced to turn off the autopilot.

Soon after, the plane lost its direction and began to make an unusual right turn. At this point, the plane had reached an altitude of more than 4,700 meters, but the climb speed was very slow, causing the crew members to panic and stress to the extreme.

Observing the unstable situation of the aircraft, the ground control tower immediately instructed the crew to return to the airport, while clearing nearby airspace and summoning technical staff and executives. to handle the problem.

However, at this point, the tragedy was completely out of control, only about 9 minutes had passed since take-off, the plane suddenly veered to the left and plummeted from a height of 4,100 meters to 2,884 meters in ten seconds.

In the end, with two loud bangs, the fuselage could not withstand the enormous overload and crumbled in midair.

Two small plugs cause big disaster

After the accident happened, the Shaanxi provincial government quickly organized a large number of rescue and medical personnel to the scene. The place where the plane crashed is just 49km from Ham Duong airport where it took off.

The plane broke into pieces

According to the doctor's autopsy report, under the tremendous pressure from the high-altitude airflow, most of the victims died from skull fractures and multiple body fractures. It is difficult to find a complete body, so identification also becomes extremely difficult.

The plane's cockpit was severed, and none of the crew members survived. The only passenger still breathing was found dead within 10 minutes.

The relevant departments of the Civil Aviation Administration of China immediately set up an investigation team to search for the black box and the plane's debris to find the cause of this major accident.

To date, there are still many unidentified victims

Soon after, investigators discovered an anomaly in the plane's wreckage: There were two plugs on the plane's autopilot that were plugged in backwards!

Tragedy happens from many small mistakes

According to the normal process, the check before take-off is carried out extremely strictly and must follow a 3-stage inspection process: Self-inspection by maintenance staff, 1 re-inspection and final inspection. assign the supervisor to check the whole thing.

This is key to ensuring that the aircraft can safely perform its mission. So it's highly unlikely that the two plugs are reversed.

The plane went through a maintenance session before it crashed

The relevant departments immediately investigated the related repair and maintenance records, and discovered that the errors were caused by human subjectivity.

According to the airline's maintenance records, just one day before flight WH2303 took off, on June 4, the aircraft underwent maintenance.

However, the maintenance technician, despite having many years of experience, did not comply with the regulations, allowing 2 trainees without a practicing certificate to participate in the working process, but without close supervision. So the two new employees plugged in the two plugs backwards and didn't double-check themselves.

Then, when the operator turned on the connection to the mains, he did not notice any unusual problems. The device was then powered back on for testing, but still no abnormalities were noticed.

On the other hand, the supervisor in charge of the inspection voluntarily left the scene that day without permission. After that, he did not re-check the equipment's condition according to the correct procedure, but he casually signed the minutes of approval for standard maintenance.

As such, none of the checks were performed according to standard procedures during the final maintenance of the aircraft. The lack of responsibility at work led to tragedy for the entire crew, killing many innocent people.

The maintenance workers and supervisors were later punished by law with sentences of 7 years and 4 years in prison, respectively. However, even though the wicked have suffered, the pain of the 160 family members who died because of their carelessness will never go away.