The second recorder containing data from the flight that crashed in China was recovered on Sunday. It could help solve the mystery of the plane’s dizzying fall in minutes.
The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800, which linked the Chinese cities of Kunming (southwest) and Guangzhou (south), had disintegrated on Monday on a wooded hill in Wuzhou (south), in the province of Guangxi.
The causes of the disaster, which killed all 123 passengers and nine crew members, are not yet known. All the people on board the plane were of Chinese nationality.
The first flight recorder, which contains conversations in the cockpit, was found on Wednesday and sent to Beijing for analysis.
This analysis should still take several days.
Sunday morning, a new “orange cylindrical object was unearthed,” Zhu Tao, director of aviation safety at the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC), told reporters.
“Investigators on site have confirmed […] that this is the flight data recorder storage unit. »
This second black box contains crucial information such as the speed of the aircraft, its altitude and the heading followed.
“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 Tao said.
Mermaid
Public broadcaster CCTV broadcast footage on Sunday of rescuers recovering the black box covered in some dirt. It was discovered 1.5 meters deep.
The two flight recorders now found, the investigators should obtain within a few days or weeks the first elements of response on the causes of the accident.
According to the specialized site FlightRadar24, the device providing flight MU5735 had lost nearly 21,250 feet (6477 meters) in just one minute.
After a brief ascent, it had plunged again, 4,625 feet (1,410 meters), according to the plotter, to be 3,225 feet (983 meters) from the ground. It then crashed.
According to several experts, these data are relatively unusual.
There is currently no suspicion on the captain and his two co-pilots, who respectively accumulated 6,709, 31,769 and 556 flight hours, according to China Eastern.
Based on a preliminary investigation, the service records of these pilots were “very good” and their family situations were “harmonious”, the airline said.
A moment of tribute to the 132 victims was organized Sunday afternoon for three minutes at the site of the accident, a steep earthy hill surrounded by vegetation, according to CCTV.
Sirens sounded and firefighters in full white protective suits, masks over their faces, held their red helmets under their arms while bowing their heads in respect.
Compensation
After confirming the identities of the vast majority of victims through DNA testing, the CAAC announced on Saturday that all of the people on board the aircraft had died.
This is the worst plane crash since 1994 in China, where air safety is however considered very good by experts.
Now that the human toll is known, the process of compensating the families of the victims has begun, said Liu Xiaodong, director of the communication department of China Eastern, on Sunday, quoted by New China.
Hundreds of rescuers and investigators continue their search at the scene of the tragedy.
Helped by backhoes, they recovered debris from the plane, human remains and any element that could be used for the investigation. Nearly 34,000 pieces of the device have already been collected, CAAC official Zhu Tao said on Sunday.