China found this Friday (26), still late Thursday night (25) in Brazil, the second black box of the plane that crashed on Monday in the south of the country, according to the information agency of the aviation service. from the country.
On Wednesday (24), the first black box of the aircraft was found, a Boeing 737—800 that had 132 people on board at the time of the crash.
At the time, the authorities confirmed that it was the recorder of the cockpit conversations. The object found this Friday, then, must be the flight data recorder.
The China Eastern Airlines plane had departed the city of Kunming bound for Guangzhou and crashed in a mountainous area near Wuzhou on Monday afternoon. Hundreds of firefighters, soldiers, doctors and volunteers were mobilized to search for traces of the passengers and their belongings and the black boxes.
The plane crashed at an almost vertical angle and lost 8 km of altitude in less than two minutes, in circumstances that still puzzle experts.
The possible confirmation of the deaths of all 123 passengers and 9 crew members would make the plane crash the worst since 1994 in China, where air safety is considered very good by experts. According to the CAAC, all people on board were Chinese nationals.
The regulator’s spokesman reiterated that there is no reason to attribute the Boeing crash to any adverse weather conditions. Meteorological records at the time of the accident indicate that there was cloudiness on the route traveled, but not to the point of impairing visibility.
The airline and two of its subsidiaries have announced that they will stop using more than 200 Boeing 737-800s. The model that crashed on Monday has a good track record and is the predecessor to the 737 MAX model, which has been idle in China for more than three years after accidents in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia.
According to the CAAC spokesperson, the measure was not necessarily a response to any identified safety issues on the aircraft, but an emergency reaction to the accident.
The regulatory body also launched a task force to inspect the entire aviation sector in the country (including companies, air traffic control offices and training centers). The campaign, which will take place over the next two weeks, aims to prevent further accidents and enhance safety.
