BEIJING: The second black box has been recovered from last week’s deadly China Eastern plane crash, officials said Sunday, and could help solve the mystery of the jet’s breakneck descent.
The Boeing 737-800 was flying between the cities of Kunming and Guangzhou on Monday when it nosedived into a mountainside, disintegrating on impact and killing all 132 people on board.
The cause of the disaster, China’s deadliest plane crash in more than 30 years, is not yet known.
An “orange cylindrical object was unearthed” Sunday morning, Zhu Tao, director of safety at China’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC), told reporters.
“Investigators on site have confirmed... it is the storage unit of the flight data recorder.”
The plane was equipped with two flight recorders: a cockpit voice recorder and one in the rear passenger cabin tracking flight data.
The former was found on Wednesday and sent to Beijing for analysis, which is expected to take several more days.
This second black box contains crucial information such as the speed of the aircraft, its altitude and heading.
“While other parts of the recorder were seriously damaged, the data storage unit appears relatively intact” and “has been sent to a professional lab to be decoded”, Zhu said.
Hundreds of people, including firefighters, doctors and investigators — some dressed in full-body protective suits — remained at the scene of the tragedy on Sunday recovering human remains and the wreckage of the plane.
Earthmovers assisted in the operation on the mountainside, which is covered in dense vegetation.
Early recovery efforts were hampered by heavy rain, forcing a temporary pause due to what state media called “the small risk of landslides” in the large pit that was bored out by the impact of the aircraft.
On Sunday, China Eastern said the plane’s captain and two co-pilots were not under suspicion.
A preliminary investigation had shown the three men to have “excellent service records”, the airline said, adding that their home situations hinted at no evidence of trouble.
The captain had more than 6,700 hours of flight experience while the first co-pilot had over 31,000 hours of flight time and the second more than 550 hours, officials said previously.
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