The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has blasted the Wall Street Journal for its reporting on the crash of China Eastern Airlines’ flight MU5735 in March. From the Global Times:
…Chinese civil aviation industry analysts blasted the US media reports as being unprofessional and causing unnecessary interference with the ongoing investigation. Such unsubstantiated reports amount to vicious smearing against China, the analysts noted.
The Global Times article also points out the CAAC says the “NTSB ‘made it clear that it did not release any information related to the investigation to any media.'” The article also notes that:
The CAAC refuted rumors surrounding the crash, saying the accident was still under investigation, and no conclusions had been drawn on the cause and nature of the accident yet.
That seems to put us all back into the state of speculation that we were in before the WSJs reporting.
Makes sense to me – If the final conclusion is different, then conflicting reports undermine authority. If the same, then the officials are the last to report the news. Either way, the Chinese officials have little to nothing to gain from US Americans who leak preliminary findings to the media.