China Eastern MU5735 crash: investigators start black box analysis but warn it is too soon to say if it has been damaged
- Emergency teams recovered the cockpit voice recorder the previous day and are still searching for the flight data recorder that could provide vital clues
- All 132 on board the plane are feared to have been killed after the plane plunged thousands of metres into a hillside in southern China
“The downloading and analysis of data is under way after the first black box was sent to a decoding laboratory in Beijing last night,” Zhu Tao, the aviation safety director at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), told a press conference in Wuzhou, the city closest to the crash site, on Thursday.
“For now, we cannot rule out the possibility that the storage unit has been damaged,” he said.
The cockpit voice recorder, one of the two “black boxes” that document in-flight data, was found on Wednesday, potentially providing crucial evidence towards understanding what happened in the final moments of the flight, which had 132 people on board.
Zhu told the press conference that more human remains had been found at the site and the wreckage recovered so far included parts of the engine blade and turbine, engine pylon, horizontal stabilisers on both sides, and parts from the wings of the Boeing 737-800.
He said most of the wreckage was found in an area within a 30-metre (98-foot) radius around the impact point of the crash, which had left a crater up to 20 metres deep.