According to CNN, new research has sparked new concerns about what transpired in the last moments prior to the catastrophic plane accident in China that claimed the lives of all 132 passengers more than four years ago.
In March 2022, China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735, a Boeing 737-800, crashed into a mountain in the Guangxi region after plunging 29,000 feet.
It was the deadliest aviation accident to strike the nation in decades. The crucial question of what caused the abrupt decline has not, however, been addressed by China's Civil Aviation Administration.According to data made public by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in response to a request for information, both engines' fuel switches were turned off simultaneously before the aircraft crashed.
The flight data recorder, one of the two "black boxes" that hold operational data, was the source of the data.
Since the aircraft was made in the US, it was collected from the accident site and sent to the NTSB laboratory in Washington, DC, for examination.The fuel switches on both engines shifted from the run position to the cutoff position while the aircraft was travelling at 29,000 feet, according to the NTSB investigation, and engine speeds thereafter dropped.

On commercial aircraft, fuel switches are physical devices that manage the fuel supply to the engines. Before switching from run to cutoff on this model, the pilot must lift the switch.
According to aviation safety specialist David Soucie, it is evident from the data that the fuel switches were manually turned off just before the collision. He went on to say that there was no sign that the switches had been turned back on, indicating that no attempt had been made to restart the engines. He added that the pilots would have attempted to turn the switches back on if they had accidentally turned them off.

The report claims that when the aircraft's generators failed at 26,000 feet, the flight data recorder malfunctioned and failed to record the last seconds of the disaster. But the voice recorder in the cockpit kept recording with a backup battery.
Four voice recordings from the damaged cockpit recorder were recovered by US investigators and delivered to Chinese authorities; however, the NTSB stated that it did not retain a copy of the audio files.