Last month’s deadly plane crash in China remains a mystery: authorities have delivered a preliminary report sparing in detail, while imposing strict control over information surrounding the disaster.
A Boeing 737-800 from China Eastern, connecting the cities of Kunming (southwest) and Guangzhou (south) crashed on March 21 in Guangxi province (south) after an unexplained fall of several thousand meters in just a few minutes, at the speed of sound.
All 132 people on board, all Chinese, died in this plane crash, the deadliest in China for nearly 30 years, despite the very good air safety in the country.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), wary of any media hype, quickly activated its media censorship, as Chinese and foreign journalists flocked to the crash site.
China was to submit a report to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) within 30 days of the disaster.
But in a statement, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) did not further explain Wednesday what could have caused the accident.
The qualifications of the aircraft’s crew and maintenance personnel were “in good standing” as well as the aircraft’s certificate of airworthiness, she said. The flight does not appear to have encountered any adverse weather conditions either.
– “Illegal information” –
Both black boxes “were severely damaged by the impact and data analysis is continuing,” the CAAC said.
She said, however, that the general public would not have access to the preliminary report and that a full investigation could still take several years.
As soon as the accident occurred near the small town of Wuzhou, the security forces cordoned off a large area around the disaster site, which they initially prohibited access to AFP reporters.
The media had great difficulty speaking to the families of the victims: the latter were accommodated in hotels where guards kept journalists at bay.
The official press insisted a lot on the mobilization of relief, political leaders, but much less on the portraits of the passengers of flight MU5375.
The few Chinese media that have told the personal stories of the passengers have been accused on social media of profiting from the pain of the victims’ families.
For its part, the Internet regulatory authority announced that it had deleted a large amount of “illegal information” relating to the accident on the Chinese web, which is already notoriously censored when comments pose a risk to social stability.
– Sensitive year –
This strategy of power aims to “bring down the emotion” around the drama, believes David Bandurski, Chinese media specialist at the University of Hong Kong.
Because insisting on personal stories would have “created compassion and emotion, which can be used for ends not going in the direction desired by political leaders”, he believes.
Chinese censorship specialist at the University of California, San Diego, Margaret E. Roberts believes that the mainstream attention to air disasters partly explains Beijing’s desire to steer the media narrative.
This type of event “can easily become political”, she told AFP. “A single misstep by the government in its response to the crisis can be very damaging.”
In the month following the accident, the official media gradually ceased their coverage of the tragedy.
“We can expect the same sensitivity” vis-à-vis the causes of the accident, believes David Bandurski, especially in this politically critical year.
President Xi Jinping should obtain a third term as head of the CCP at the end of 2022, during a major Party congress which takes place every five years.
“What they absolutely don’t want is for another piece of news to come out of nowhere and take them by surprise.”