Relatives of passengers of flight MU5375 that crashed near Wuzhou, China, arrive at the crash site on March 23, 2022 afp_tickers This content was published on March 23, 2022 12:28pm Mar 23, 2022 12:28pm ( AFP )
Civil aviation authorities on Wednesday announced the discovery of a black box from the Boeing 737800 that crashed in China on Monday with 132 people on board for reasons still unknown.
The China Eastern Airlines plane crashed into a forested slope in Wuzhou (south) on Monday while flying from Kunming (southwest) to Guangzhou (south).
So far no survivors of flight MU5735 have been found and there is little hope as the plane crashed almost vertically and then caught fire.
A black box [vuelo] of China Eastern MU5735 was found on March 23, Liu Lusong, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), told reporters.
A passenger aircraft has two flight recorders, also known as black boxes, one that records conversations in the cockpit and another that records important information such as the aircraft’s speed, altitude and heading.
The CCAA did not specify which of the two black boxes had been found, saying only that it was “severely damaged”.
Hundreds of firefighters, soldiers, doctors and volunteers are still at work trying to find traces of the passengers and their belongings, as well as the second black box.
‘kerosene smell’
AFP journalists saw a small group of people, escorted by local officials, crossing a roadblock a few kilometers from the crash site where torrential rain fell on Wednesday.
A man told reporters he was a relative of a victim and asked the media not to crowd around him.
The search was called off on Wednesday because of heavy rains that left the site muddy and difficult to access for rescue workers.
“Small landslides are possible,” said a reporter from the state broadcaster CCTV, who could still smell “kerosene” at the site two days after the disaster.
“There is a huge hole where the plane crashed. Water has accumulated there (…) and drainage works will certainly be necessary,” he explained.
The CCTV chain broadcast images of the plane’s white remains scattered on the dark brown soil, along with wallets, identification documents, clothing or still cameras.
A possible confirmation of the deaths of all 123 passengers and nine crew members would make it the worst plane crash since 1994 in China, where flight safety is considered by experts to be very good.
According to the CAAC, all persons on board were of Chinese nationality.
Reduce
At the moment the reasons for the accident are unknown. According to specialist website Flightradar, the plane was pitching sharply to the ground before the crash, unusual behavior experts say.
“When the air traffic controller noticed the plane’s sharp drop in altitude, he immediately contacted the crew several times but received no response,” said Zhu Tao, director of flight safety at the CAAC, on Tuesday.
According to China Eastern, the aircraft met all technical requirements. However, the CCAA ordered a general inspection of the entire aviation sector over the next two weeks.
Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Monday to “determine the causes of the accident as soon as possible” and dispatched a government team led by Vice Premier Liu He to the scene.