One of the two black boxes of the China Eastern plane that crashed on Monday was found in severely damaged condition.
The discovery is expected to help determine what caused the crash – the worst air disaster in the country in a decade – which is believed to have killed all 132 people on board.
Boeing 737, which erupted into a ball of fire large enough to be seen on Nasa satellite images, has left a tomb about the size of a football field on a mountain in Guangxi Province, where it has fallen, according to official Xinhua News Agency.
The black box that was found is so damaged that it is not yet possible to tell if it is the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.
Mao Yanfeng, the director of China’s Civil Aviation Authority’s Accident Investigation Division, told a news conference on Wednesday that every effort was being made to find the other black box.
The search for clues as to why the plane crashed was suspended on Wednesday due to rain, while previously searchers had used drones and snow dogs to comb the strong forest runways for the recorder.
Video clips posted by China state media showed small pieces of the plane spreading across the area. Mud-stained wallets, bank and identity cards were also recovered.
Investigators say it is too early to speculate on the cause. The plane went into an unexplained dive an hour after departure and stopped communicating the data for 96 seconds in the fall.
An air traffic controller tried several times to contact the pilots after seeing the height of the plane sharply, but received no response, Zhu Tao, director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the Civil Aviation Authority of China, said on Tuesday.
“So far, the rescue has still found survivors,” Mr Zhu said. “The public safety department has taken control of the site.”
ITV News Asia correspondent Debi Edward shares more details of the day of the crash:
Meanwhile, a Bloomberg News Review of flight route data found Flight MU5735 was traveling close to the speed of sound in the moments before it hit the mountain.
Such an impact could undermine evidence and damage the data and voice recorders of an aircraft designed to withstand most crashes, which could complicate the task for investigators, Bloomberg News said.
Family members of passengers on the flight began to arrive at the gate of Lu village just outside the crash zone on Wednesday, where they, along with reporters on the spot, were stopped by police and officials who used open umbrellas for the view. beyond blocking.
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