image source,Xinhua
The search site was still muddy due to heavy rain, hampering rescue efforts.
The search for the crash of China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 has entered its third day. After the first flight recorder, commonly known as the “black box”, was discovered, the second “black box” became the focus of the search.
The official China Central Television reported that the search area expanded on Thursday morning (March 24), and was more than 10 times larger than the core area. State media stressed that the “golden 72 hours” of search-and-rescue time for the disaster had not yet passed, but the Beijing-appointed National Emergency Response Command said earlier that fragments of human tissue were found at the scene.
On the afternoon of March 21, China Eastern Airlines MU5735 was flying from Kunming, Yunnan to Guangzhou, Guangdong, when it crashed into a valley near Mozong Village, Langnan Town, Teng County, Wuzhou, Guangxi. The plane that crashed was an American Boeing 737-800, less than seven years old, with 132 people on board at the time of the incident, including 123 passengers and 9 crew members.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said China had invited the U.S. to participate in the investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which was invited, said it had not yet determined whether to send personnel to China.
China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 crash: family members say “as long as there is hope of survival”
According to international practice, the United States, as the design and production country of the crashed plane, can appoint qualified representatives to participate in the investigation. The NTSB announced shortly after the China Eastern Airlines crash that it had appointed a senior flight safety investigator as the U.S. investigation representative.
“Travel to China is currently subject to visa and COVID-19 quarantine restrictions. We will address these issues through the State Department and the Chinese government before making a decision to travel,” the NTSB said, citing Reuters.
Theo Leggett, a BBC business correspondent who specializes in transportation news, pointed out earlier that in addition to the NTSB, Boeing itself, aircraft engine maker CFM International, and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will appoint technical advisers. , to assist in the investigation of the air crash.
Second “black box”
Investigators recovered one of the “black boxes” two days after the incident.
Searchers announced Wednesday afternoon that they had recovered one of the “black boxes” from the crashed airliner. Zhu Tao, director of the Aviation Safety Office of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said that the appearance of the “black box” was severely damaged, and it was initially determined to be a cockpit voice recorder (CVR).
“We have sent it overnight to a professional institution in Beijing for decoding,” Zhu Tao said.
Mao Yanfeng, director of the Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Center of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said at an official press conference: “Because this accident is relatively rare, the air traffic control radar showed that the plane suddenly dropped in altitude during the cruise phase, and the rate of descent was very high. Find the black box on the plane as soon as possible, Sending it to a professional laboratory for decoding is very important for sorting out the accident chain, restoring and analyzing the cause of the accident.”
The next step for searchers is to try to find another “black box” – the flight data recorder (FDR). However, a reporter from China’s CCTV at the crash site pointed out that experts repeatedly searched for the “black box”‘s own radio signal, but found nothing, and believed that its transmitter may be damaged.
Zhu Tao previously stated that flight MU5735 took off from Kunming at 13:16 Beijing time (05:16 GMT) on Monday, and entered the Guangzhou control area (Guangzhou flight information region) at 14:17 while maintaining a cruising altitude of 8,900 meters. At 14:20, the controller noticed that the aircraft’s altitude had dropped sharply, and called the crew several times, but no response was received. At 14:23, the aircraft’s radar signal disappeared, and it was later confirmed that it had crashed.
Mao Yanfeng further stated on Wednesday that when the plane crashed, the weather on the route was airworthy and there was no dangerous weather. According to the ground-to-air communication records between the crew and the air traffic control unit, the flight crew maintained normal communication with the air traffic control unit from the time the flight took off from Kunming until the sudden drop in altitude.
Pilot in ‘good’ condition
image source,Future Publishing / Getty Images
China Eastern Airlines has a good safety record over the past decade.
Civil aviation authorities and China Eastern confirmed that there were three pilots on board. Shangguan Xuemin, general manager of China Eastern’s customer committee, said on Wednesday night: “Generally, two crew members are arranged for flight operations. One is the captain, who is responsible for the safety of the entire flight, and the other is the co-pilot, who cooperates with the captain to complete the flight tasks.”
“The third co-pilot on this flight acts as an observer, and this arrangement can help it build up and increase flight experience. This is also in line with the corresponding operational requirements.”
Earlier in the day, Sun Shiying, chairman and secretary of the party committee of China Eastern Airlines Yunnan Company, informed that the captain was hired as the captain of the B737 model in January 2018, with a total flight time of 6,709 hours, a total flight time of the first co-pilot of 31,769 hours, and a second flight time of 31,769 hours. The co-pilot’s total flight time was 556 hours. The three pilots are in good health, have complete flight experience, meet the requirements of the authority, and have a harmonious family situation.
On February 19, the Civil Aviation Administration of China celebrated that the continuous safe flight time of civil aviation transport aviation exceeded 100 million hours. Authorities described it as “the best sustained record of safe flight in the history of world civil aviation”. Now this record ends with China Eastern Airlines flight MU5735.
According to the official China News Agency, industry insiders believe that the cause of the air crash should not be rashly guessed before further investigation progresses. “This is extremely harmful to civil aviation system workers.”
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