Second 'black box' found in China Eastern plane crash
BEIJING -- The second “black box” has been recovered from the crash of a China Eastern Boeing 737-800 that killed all 132 people on board last week, Chinese state media said Sunday.
Firefighters taking part in the search found the recorder, an orange cylinder, on a mountain slope about 1.5 meters (5 feet) underground, state broadcaster CCTV said. Experts confirmed it was the second black box. The impact of the crash scattered debris widely and created a 20-meter- (65-foot-) deep pit in the side of the mountain.
Searchers had been looking for the flight data recorder after finding the cockpit voice recorder four days ago. The two recorders should help investigators determine what caused the plane to plummet from 29,000 feet (8,800 meters) and into a forested mountainside in southern China.
The search for the black boxes and wreckage from the plane has been complicated by the remote setting and rainy and muddy conditions. Video posted by CGTN, the international arm of CCTV, showed an official holding the orange can-like object on site with the words “RECORDER” and “DO NOT OPEN” written on it. It appeared slightly dented but intact.
Flight MU5735 crashed Monday en route from the city of Kunming in southeastern China to Guangzhou, a major city and export manufacturing hub near Hong Kong. An air traffic controller tried to contact the pilots several times after seeing the plane’s altitude drop sharply but got no reply, officials have said.
The cockpit voice recorder, also an orange cylinder, was found two days later on Wednesday. It has been sent to Beijing for examination and analysis.
Hundreds of searchers have been combing the site outside the city of Wuzhou for days with shovels and other hand tools. Construction excavators have been brought in to remove earth and clear passageways to the site, and pumps are being used to drain collected water from the rain.
Officials announced late Saturday that there were no survivors among the 123 passengers and nine crew members. DNA analysis has confirmed the identities of 120 of the people on board, they said. Searchers have found ID and bank cards belonging to the victims.
China Eastern, one of China’s four major airlines, and its subsidiaries have grounded all of their Boeing 737-800s, a total of 223 aircraft. The carrier said the grounding was a precaution, not a sign of any problem with the planes.
The Boeing Co. said in a statement that a Boeing technical team is supporting the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which will lead the investigation into the crash.
China Eastern Airlines confirms fatalities in flight MU5735 crash
GUANGZHOU: China Eastern has confirmed there are fatalities after a jet carrying 132 people crashed into a mountain in southern China on Monday (Mar 21), shortly after losing contact with air traffic control and dropping thousands of metres in just three minutes.
The Boeing 737-800 flight from the city of Kunming to the southern hub of Guangzhou "lost airborne contact over Wuzhou" city in the Guangxi region on Monday afternoon, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
In Guangzhou, staff assisted loved ones of the 123 passengers and nine crew members aboard the plane, which stopped sending any flight information after dropping a total of 7,925m in altitude in just three minutes.
A video carried by some Chinese media appeared to show a plane in a vertical nosedive. AFP could not immediately verify its authenticity.
"The company expresses its deep condolences for the passengers and crew members who died in the plane crash," China Eastern said in a statement, without providing more information.
The disaster prompted an unusually swift public reaction from President Xi Jinping, who said he was "shocked" and ordered an immediate investigation into its cause, calling for "absolute safety" in air travel, according to CCTV.
The US National Transportation Safety Board said it had named a senior investigator as a representative to the probe, and that officials from Boeing, General Electric and the Federal Aviation Administration would be technical advisors.
DROPPED FROM SKY
Hundreds of firefighters were dispatched to the scene in Teng county near Wuzhou, state media reported, as nearby villagers rushed to help the rescue effort.
"Everyone went to the mountains," Tang Min, who runs a restaurant not far from the crash site, told AFP by telephone.
Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed the plane sharply dropped from an altitude of 8,870m to about 2,393m in just over a minute.
After a brief upswing, it plunged to 983m, the tracker said. There is no data for the flight after 2.22pm.
One villager told a local news site the plane had "completely fallen apart" and he had seen forest areas destroyed by the fire caused by the crash.
Another villager surnamed Liu told state-run China News Service that he had driven his motorbike to the scene after hearing a loud explosion and seen scattered debris including an aircraft wing and scraps of clothing.
Aerial images of the crash site showed a large crater in the side of a green mountainside. State TV footage followed orange-clad emergency workers battling thick foliage to gather debris.
China Eastern changed its website to black and white on Monday afternoon.
The company said in a January report that it had 289 Boeing 737-series aircraft in its 751-strong fleet. Chinese media reported that the airline will now ground all the 737-800 jets.
Shares in Boeing, which said it was "working to gather more information", closed down 3.6 percent on Wall Street.
'WAITING FOR NEWS'
At Guangzhou airport, staff in full PPE held up signs to direct distraught relatives to a waiting area marked by high black screens emblazoned with the word "emergency" and guarded by officials and police.
AFP reporters saw loved ones awaiting news and heard sobbing.
One airport staffer told AFP her colleagues were "focusing on taking care" of relatives of those involved in the crash.
A man surnamed Ye told AFP his colleague Tan was onboard.
"When we heard the news ... (we) called him over and over for hours, but never got through," Ye said, adding he had alerted the man's parents, who were "going through some very complex emotions".
A woman told local media she had been due to board the flight but had taken an earlier plane at the last minute. Her sister and four friends had taken the crashed jet, she said.
China had enjoyed an enviable air safety record in recent years, as the country was crisscrossed by newly built airports and serviced by new airlines established to match breakneck growth over the last few decades.
A Henan Airlines flight crashed in northeastern Heilongjiang province in 2010, killing at least 42 out of 92 people on board, although the final toll was never confirmed. It was the last Chinese commercial flight crash that caused civilian fatalities.
The deadliest Chinese commercial flight accident was a China Northwest Airlines crash in 1994, which killed all 160 onboard.
Jean-Paul Troadec, former director of France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, told AFP it was "far too early" to draw conclusions, but said the FlightRadar data pattern was "very unusual".
Second 'black box' found in China Eastern plane crash
BEIJING -- The second “black box” has been recovered from the crash of a China Eastern Boeing 737-800 that killed all 132 people on board last week, Chinese state media said Sunday.
Firefighters taking part in the search found the recorder, an orange cylinder, on a mountain slope about 1.5 meters (5 feet) underground, state broadcaster CCTV said. Experts confirmed it was the second black box. The impact of the crash scattered debris widely and created a 20-meter- (65-foot-) deep pit in the side of the mountain.
Searchers had been looking for the flight data recorder after finding the cockpit voice recorder four days ago. The two recorders should help investigators determine what caused the plane to plummet from 29,000 feet (8,800 meters) and into a forested mountainside in southern China.
The search for the black boxes and wreckage from the plane has been complicated by the remote setting and rainy and muddy conditions. Video posted by CGTN, the international arm of CCTV, showed an official holding the orange can-like object on site with the words “RECORDER” and “DO NOT OPEN” written on it. It appeared slightly dented but intact.
Flight MU5735 crashed Monday en route from the city of Kunming in southeastern China to Guangzhou, a major city and export manufacturing hub near Hong Kong. An air traffic controller tried to contact the pilots several times after seeing the plane’s altitude drop sharply but got no reply, officials have said.
The cockpit voice recorder, also an orange cylinder, was found two days later on Wednesday. It has been sent to Beijing for examination and analysis.
Hundreds of searchers have been combing the site outside the city of Wuzhou for days with shovels and other hand tools. Construction excavators have been brought in to remove earth and clear passageways to the site, and pumps are being used to drain collected water from the rain.
Officials announced late Saturday that there were no survivors among the 123 passengers and nine crew members. DNA analysis has confirmed the identities of 120 of the people on board, they said. Searchers have found ID and bank cards belonging to the victims.
China Eastern, one of China’s four major airlines, and its subsidiaries have grounded all of their Boeing 737-800s, a total of 223 aircraft. The carrier said the grounding was a precaution, not a sign of any problem with the planes.
The Boeing Co. said in a statement that a Boeing technical team is supporting the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which will lead the investigation into the crash.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/black-box-found-china-eastern-plane-crash-83696896
China Eastern Airlines confirms fatalities in flight MU5735 crash
GUANGZHOU: China Eastern has confirmed there are fatalities after a jet carrying 132 people crashed into a mountain in southern China on Monday (Mar 21), shortly after losing contact with air traffic control and dropping thousands of metres in just three minutes.
The Boeing 737-800 flight from the city of Kunming to the southern hub of Guangzhou "lost airborne contact over Wuzhou" city in the Guangxi region on Monday afternoon, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
In Guangzhou, staff assisted loved ones of the 123 passengers and nine crew members aboard the plane, which stopped sending any flight information after dropping a total of 7,925m in altitude in just three minutes.
A video carried by some Chinese media appeared to show a plane in a vertical nosedive. AFP could not immediately verify its authenticity.
"The company expresses its deep condolences for the passengers and crew members who died in the plane crash," China Eastern said in a statement, without providing more information.
The disaster prompted an unusually swift public reaction from President Xi Jinping, who said he was "shocked" and ordered an immediate investigation into its cause, calling for "absolute safety" in air travel, according to CCTV.
The US National Transportation Safety Board said it had named a senior investigator as a representative to the probe, and that officials from Boeing, General Electric and the Federal Aviation Administration would be technical advisors.
DROPPED FROM SKY
Hundreds of firefighters were dispatched to the scene in Teng county near Wuzhou, state media reported, as nearby villagers rushed to help the rescue effort.
"Everyone went to the mountains," Tang Min, who runs a restaurant not far from the crash site, told AFP by telephone.
Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed the plane sharply dropped from an altitude of 8,870m to about 2,393m in just over a minute.
After a brief upswing, it plunged to 983m, the tracker said. There is no data for the flight after 2.22pm.
One villager told a local news site the plane had "completely fallen apart" and he had seen forest areas destroyed by the fire caused by the crash.
Another villager surnamed Liu told state-run China News Service that he had driven his motorbike to the scene after hearing a loud explosion and seen scattered debris including an aircraft wing and scraps of clothing.
Aerial images of the crash site showed a large crater in the side of a green mountainside. State TV footage followed orange-clad emergency workers battling thick foliage to gather debris.
China Eastern changed its website to black and white on Monday afternoon.
The company said in a January report that it had 289 Boeing 737-series aircraft in its 751-strong fleet. Chinese media reported that the airline will now ground all the 737-800 jets.
Shares in Boeing, which said it was "working to gather more information", closed down 3.6 percent on Wall Street.
'WAITING FOR NEWS'
At Guangzhou airport, staff in full PPE held up signs to direct distraught relatives to a waiting area marked by high black screens emblazoned with the word "emergency" and guarded by officials and police.
AFP reporters saw loved ones awaiting news and heard sobbing.
One airport staffer told AFP her colleagues were "focusing on taking care" of relatives of those involved in the crash.
A man surnamed Ye told AFP his colleague Tan was onboard.
"When we heard the news ... (we) called him over and over for hours, but never got through," Ye said, adding he had alerted the man's parents, who were "going through some very complex emotions".
A woman told local media she had been due to board the flight but had taken an earlier plane at the last minute. Her sister and four friends had taken the crashed jet, she said.
China had enjoyed an enviable air safety record in recent years, as the country was crisscrossed by newly built airports and serviced by new airlines established to match breakneck growth over the last few decades.
A Henan Airlines flight crashed in northeastern Heilongjiang province in 2010, killing at least 42 out of 92 people on board, although the final toll was never confirmed. It was the last Chinese commercial flight crash that caused civilian fatalities.
The deadliest Chinese commercial flight accident was a China Northwest Airlines crash in 1994, which killed all 160 onboard.
Jean-Paul Troadec, former director of France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, told AFP it was "far too early" to draw conclusions, but said the FlightRadar data pattern was "very unusual".
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-eastern-airlines-confirms-fatalities-flight-mu5735-crash-2577696
Jialat sia the plane dropped from 29,100 feet to 7,425 feet in just slightly over one minute, machiam like vertical free-falling!
监控意外拍下坠毁瞬间 东航客机“几乎垂直下坠”
载有132人的中国东方航空波音737客机坠毁，有监控意外拍下客机坠毁瞬间，机头几乎朝垂直坠向山林中。
网络上流传一段客机坠前的监控画面，从画面中看得出，一架飞机的机头垂直朝下坠向山林，客机看似并没有在空中解体，整个坠落过程不到五秒。
《澎湃新闻》也向监控画面拍摄公司核实相关视频的真伪，员工也证实，有关画面属实，监控摄像头距离客机坠毁地点大概只有一公里。
这名工作人员也表示，事发时他正在矿区的山头工作，听到一声爆炸声时，以为是隔壁山头有人在放礼炮。
“爆炸声持续时间不长，没想到是飞机失事了。”
目前，救援工作仍在进行中，还未有任何发现遇难者遗体的相关消息。
https://www.8world.com/greater-china/china-eastern-airlines-1760161