China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735: second black box sent for decoding
- The plane’s data recorder could reveal details of its speed and altitude before it crashed in southern China
- The black box was found buried under 1.5 metres of soil, state broadcaster CCTV reports
Zhu Tao, aviation safety chief at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said firefighters found the flight data recorder’s storage unit at around 9.20am buried under about 1.5 metres (5 feet) of soil.
“After an inspection, save for the storage unit exterior that is in fairly good condition, the other parts of the recorder suffered severe damage,” Zhu said.
The device could offer vital clues as to why the plane dived from a cruising altitude of about 8,869 metres, becoming the deadliest aviation disaster in China since 1994.
The Boeing 737-800 was en route from Kunming in southwestern China to Guangzhou, but lost contact over the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
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Human remains found at China Eastern plane crash site as temporary road built to help investigation
Searchers used metal detectors to look for the device in hilly terrain near Wuzhou. Despite the name, black boxes are painted in high-visibility orange to make them easier to find.
Zhu said the storage unit had been sent to a laboratory and the data inside would be decoded.
State broadcaster CCTV reported that the device had been sent to Beijing, where data from the other black box, the cockpit voice recorder, was being extracted.
CCTV footage showed the canister, a little larger than a human hand, had a small dent on one of its edges. A label reading “FLIGHT RECORDER DO NOT OPEN” in English was taped to the side.
“It was cylindrical and covered in soil,” Chen Xiaohui, the deputy commander of the fire brigade in the regional capital Nanning, told CCTV at the scene, standing next to an exposed tree root that he said the device was buried under.
The flight data recorder stores important information such as the flight path, speed, altitude and engine power of the aircraft, data that can indicate whether human error or instrument problems contributed to a crash.
“Information inside the flight data recorder can provide true and objective evidence to help analyse the cause of accident,” Mao Yanfeng, the head of the CAAC’s aviation accident investigation office, said.
Investigators could combine the data extracted from the two black boxes with other evidence such as debris, radar information, eyewitness accounts and conversations between the crew and air traffic controllers to better understand why the accident happened, Mao said.
Zhu, the CAAC aviation safety chief, said 33,777 pieces of debris had been recovered from the site as of noon on Sunday. Investigators have also obtained new eyewitness footage captured from 8km (5 miles) north of the crash site.
The plane plunged at 560km/h (348mph) in its final moments on Monday, according to flight tracking service Flightradar24. The plane, part of Boeing’s next-generation 737 family, is one of the most used commercial airliners in the world.
Sunday was the seventh day of death, when – according to East Asian custom – the dead return home.
In the afternoon, recovery workers removed their helmets and hats and paused for three minutes as car horns sounded in tribute to the passengers and crew, CCTV reported.
Authorities said they have arranged 632 trips to the crash site for the grieving relatives.
The search and rescue command centre declared all 132 people on board the flight dead on Saturday night, after nearly a week of only finding human remains and personal belongings but no survivors.
“We will follow relevant laws and regulations of our country and fully respect reasonable requests from families,” Liu said, without giving details.
“We will discuss with families the details of compensation and establish a uniform payout standard.”
All 132 people from China Eastern Airlines crash declared dead
The command centre said on Saturday that police had identified 114 passengers and six crew at the crash scene.
The Boeing 737-800 in MU5735 was delivered to China Eastern in 2015 and had 18,239 flight hours.
The China Eastern flight was the deadliest aviation disaster in China since 1994 when a China Northwest Airlines plane disintegrated over Shaanxi province, killing 160 people.
The CAAC is leading the investigation into the cause of the crash, with the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) assisting.
The US Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing, and engine maker CRM International will also be advising on technical matters.
The NTSB is involved because the Boeing 737-800 was made in the US, but the agency is still resolving visa and Covid-19 quarantine restrictions to send investigators to China.
