One electronic recorder of the Boeing 737-800 flight that crashed on Monday in southern China with 132 people on board has been found, a civil aviation authority (CAAC) official said today.
A black box of China Eastern flight MU5735 was found on March 23, CAAC spokesman Liu Luzong told reporters.
The China Eastern Airlines plane was operating a domestic flight between the cities of Kunming, in southwest China, and Canton, in the south, when it crashed Monday in a forested mountainous area in Wujhu in the southern part of the country.
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Hundreds of firefighters, military, doctors, volunteers and local political officials mobilized to find traces of the passengers, their personal belongings and the plane's black boxes.
A Civil Aviation Authority (CAAC) official said yesterday, Tuesday, evening that no survivors had been found at present. However, the near-vertical fall of the plane before it caused a fire leaves little room for hope.
Earlier today, a search was announced to be halted due to heavy rainfall that flooded the area of the plane crash with water, with the mud making the terrain dangerous for rescue crews.
Minor landslides may occur, said a reporter for public television network CCTV, who noted that there is still a smell of kerosene at the site, two days after the tragedy.
A huge pit has formed at the plane crash site. Water has accumulated there () and it will certainly be necessary to carry out dewatering operations, he stressed.
The confirmation of the death of the 123 passengers and nine crew members of the plane will make this accident the worst air tragedy since 1994 in China, where aviation safety is considered very good by experts.
According to the CAAC, all on board the plane were Chinese.
According to data from the expert website Flightradar, the plane made a steep dive to the ground before crashing. This was deemed unusual by experts.
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When the air traffic controller noticed the plane's large decrease in altitude, he immediately tried to contact the crew several times, but received no response, Joo Tao, the director of aviation safety at CAAC, said yesterday.
The plane was not old, had been in service in China since 2015 and had already made nearly 9,000 flights of more than 18,000 hours, he explained. According to China Eastern, it met all airworthiness requirements.
The CAAC also ordered a general inspection in the aviation sector in the next two weeks.
Source: CAAC
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