Black box reveals panic but no clues

What should I do? cried pilot of doomed China Eastern flight

The cockpit voice recorder recovered from a plane that crashed one minute after take-off from Baotou , Inner Mongolia , last Sunday provides an insight into the last seconds of the flight - but no explanation of the cause of the tragedy.

Quoting members of the investigation team, the Beijing Times newspaper said yesterday that the pilot of the China Eastern Airlines aircraft had shouted: 'What's the matter? What's the matter? What should [I] do?'

This was then followed by 'extremely tragic' screams from the cabin, the report said. The Beijing Times said the recorder only captured very brief exchanges inside the cabin.

The Bombardier CRJ-200 aircraft plunged into an icy lake at nearby Nanhai Park soon after take-off, killing 53 people on board and two on the ground.

At a press conference on Saturday, investigators announced that experts had examined the voice recorder and the other 'black box', the flight data recorder, but still could not explain the cause of the crash.