Second black box of crashed Chinese plane recovered: state media
Beijing, China, Mar 25 (EFE).- Rescue teams have found the second black box of the China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed on Monday in the south of the country with 132 people on board, state media reported Friday.
The recovered black box, which records technical information including the flight path, speed, altitude and engine power before the crash, could shed light on the reasons why the Boeing 737-800 that was flying between Kunming and Guangzhou, crashed in Guangxi region at 2.38 pm local time on Monday, with no survivors found so far.
On Wednesday, the black box that records the voices in the cockpit was found and sent to Beijing to be inspected by specialists.
Following the discovery of the first black box, Zhu Tao, director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said that “an initial inspection shows the exterior of the receiver is severely damaged. The memory unit also suffered some damage, but it has remained intact.”
Downloading and analyzing the data recorded in the black box “will take time,” Zhu said, adding that the device “will provide important information about the cause of the accident.”
The plane, which according to some witnesses “nosedived,” plunged vertically almost 8,000 meters in less than three minutes, according to the FlightRadar24 flight tracking website, for reasons that are still unknown.
The plane had been flying since June 2015 and had passed all checks and its technical condition was stable and normal prior to takeoff, a China Eastern Airlines representative said, according to local media reports.
So far, search and rescue teams have covered an area of about 46,000 square meters and have found some human remains and some parts of the plane, including one of the engines, state broadcaster CGTN reported Thursday.
Steep terrain and rainfall have hampered search efforts.
Shortly after the incident, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced a two-week investigation of the Chinese airline industry to ensure the absolute safety of aviation operations. EFE
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