Rescue teams on Sunday found the second black box – the data recorder – of the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 that crashed into a mountain in southern China.
Flight MU5735 crashed on Monday, killing all 132 people on board, in mainland China’s deadliest air disaster in 28 years.
The black box, which may clarify the cause of the accident, was found 1.5 meters deep and 40 meters from the plane’s point of impact, muddy due to rainy weather in recent days and with a damaged part. The device was sent to Beijing for analysis, state media reported.
The other black box – the cockpit voice recorder – had been found last Wednesday and was also handed over to experts in the Chinese capital.
“Civil aviation investigators at the scene confirmed that the flight data recorder storage unit was found,” Zhu Tao, head of aviation security at CAAC (China Civil Aviation Administration), told a news conference in Guangxi. “Parts of the recorder were seriously damaged, but the outside of the storage unit was in good condition.”
On Thursday (24), the CAAC, the body that regulates the sector in the country, even announced that it had found the second black box, but later deleted the text from its social media accounts. The Chinese regime’s official news agency also denied the information.
On Saturday, the agency confirmed that no survivors were found among the 123 passengers and 9 crew, all Chinese nationals.
The aircraft fell at an almost vertical angle and lost 8 km of altitude in less than two minutes, in circumstances that puzzle experts.
Experts say it is too early to determine the cause of the fall and that accidents are often the result of a combination of factors.
