An electronic recording device of the Boeing 737-800 flight that crashed on Monday in southern China with 132 passengers was found, a Civil Aviation Authority (CAAC) official announced today.
“A black box of China Eastern flight MU5735 was found on March 23,” CAAC spokesman Liu Lusong told reporters.
The China Eastern Airlines plane was operating a domestic flight between the cities of Kunming, in southwestern China, and Canton, in the south, when crashed on Monday in a wooded mountainous area in Guzhou in the south of the country.
Hundreds of firefighters, military, doctors, volunteers and local political officials mobilized to find traces of the occupants, their personal belongings and the plane’s black boxes.
💔# MU5735 plane crash in China’s #Guangxi
– No survivors found yet
– Desperate hunt for survivors still ongoing
– Some wallets & IDs recovered
– Black box recorders not found yet
– Cause of tragedy remains unclear
– Families of all passengers on board have been contacted
📷Xinhua pic.twitter.com/yXU5pmff93– Miao Xiaojuan (@MiaoXiaojuan) March 22, 2022
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAAC) said last night, Tuesday night, that no survivors have been found so far. However, the almost vertical crash of the plane before it catches fire does not leave much room for hope.
Earlier in the day, investigations were called off due to heavy rains that flooded the area. plane crashwith mud making the ground dangerous for rescue teams.
“Small landslides may occur,” said a CCTV reporter, who noted that there was still a “smell of kerosene” at the site, two days after the tragedy.
“A huge pit has been created at the point of impact of the plane. Water has accumulated there (…) and it will definitely be necessary to pump water,” he underlined.
Confirmation of the deaths of 123 passengers and nine crew members will make the crash the worst air tragedy since 1994 in China, where aviation safety is considered by experts to be very good.
According to the CAAC, all the passengers on the plane were Chinese.
The plane crashed to the ground before crashing, according to the Flightradar website. This was considered unusual by experts.
“When the air traffic controller noticed the large reduction in altitude, he immediately tried to contact the crew several times, but received no response,” said Zhou Tao, CAAC’s director of aviation security.
The plane was not old, had been in service in China since 2015 and had already flown nearly 9,000 flights over 18,000 hours, he said. According to China Eastern, it met all airworthiness requirements.
The CAAC also ordered a general inspection of the aviation sector over the next two weeks.
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