One of two black boxes of crashed China Eastern passenger jet recovered: Aviation official
The Boeing 737-800 plane
One of the two black boxes of the crashed Chinese passenger jet, with 132 passengers on board, has been recovered, an aviation official said Wednesday.
The Boeing 737-800 has two flight recorders—one in the rear passenger cabin tracking flight data, and the other a cockpit voice recorder.
A flight recorder "from China Eastern MU5735 was found on March 23," Liu Lusong, a spokesman for China's aviation authority, told reporters.
The cause of Monday's crash has yet to be determined. According to local media, the plane had been in service since 2015. The flight, operated by China Eastern Airlines, was flying from the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming to Guangzhou when it crashed.
Officials are yet to declare all of the passengers dead even as a two-day operation to search for clues found no survivors from what is being described as China's deadliest plane crash in nearly 30 years.
Video clips posted by China’s state media showed small pieces of the Boeing plane scattered over the rugged area. Officials have also recovered wallets, bank and identity cards.
"At present, it is unclear whether it is a data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder," that has been found, Mao Yanfeng, an official at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said according to state media.
The probe officers have not yet made it official as to what caused the plane to crash an hour after departure.
An air-traffic controller tried to contact the pilots several times after seeing the plane’s altitude drop sharply, but got no reply, Zhu Tao, director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the Civil Aviation Authority of China, said at a Tuesday evening news conference.
“As of now, the rescue has yet to find survivors,’’ Zhu said. “The public security department has taken control of the site.’’
The Boeing 737-800 has been flying since 1998 and has a well-established safety record. It is an earlier model than the 737 Max, which was grounded worldwide for nearly two years after deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.
(With inputs from agencies)