Human remains are found as search area is widened at crash site of doomed Chinese jet that smashed into mountain after 29,000ft nose-dive
- Chinese Boeing 737-800 was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members
- It crashed an hour into the flight Monday outside Wuzhou in the Guangxi region
- Chinese recovery teams have found human remains and passenger belongings
Chinese recovery teams have found human remains at the crash site of the doomed Chinese Eastern jet after it nose-dived 29,000 feet into a mountainside with 132 people on board.
The Chinese Boeing 737-800 smashed into the muddy ground and scattered plane parts and passenger belongings across a vast area, dashing hopes of finding any survivors.
Authorities have yet to declare the number of victims from the crash – but all 132 people on board are presumed dead after rescue workers speculated that the fire resulting from the crash had ‘totally incinerated’ the passengers.
The search area at the crash site has been expanded today, as hundreds of searchers headed into muddy, forested hills to try to find the second black box from the passenger jet.
The Chinese Boeing 737-800 was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew from Kunming in Yunnan province to Guangzhou when it crashed on Monday afternoon outside the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region.
Emergency workers carrying items wrapped in bags walk down from a stepped hillside after conducting search operation near the China Eastern crash site on Thursday
The search area at the crash site has been expanded today, as hundreds of searchers headed into muddy, forested hills to try to find the second black box from the passenger jet
Workers carry a case at the site where a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane flying from Kunming to Guangzhou crashed, in Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, on Thursday
Three days after the crash, larger pieces of debris were found for the first time, including engine components and a white wing section with the red and blue China Eastern logo on it, state broadcaster CCTV said.
One of the black boxes, believed to be the cockpit voice recorder, had been found Wednesday. Its outer casing was damaged but the orange cylinder was relatively intact, investigators said.
The recording material appeared to have survived the impact in relatively good shape, and was being sent to Beijing for analysis, an official said.
The cockpit voice recorder would provide investigators with details of the communications between the flight’s three pilots, which is one more than is normally required on board a Boeing 737-800 plane.
The China Eastern Boeing 737-800 was cruising at 29,000 feet when it suddenly nose-dived into a remote mountainous area on Monday, sparking a fire in the surrounding forest that could be seen in Nasa satellite images. No survivors have been found.
On Thursday, search teams combed ground vegetation and soil with sticks and even their bare hands on the rain-sodden slopes, according to state television. Some of them also carried thermal cameras to detect signs of life.
A distraught relative, her arms supported by two men, arrived at the entrance point to the crash site as she wiped tears from her eyes.
Under pouring rain, she joined scores of firefighters, paramilitary police and reporters to trudge across the rough terrain to where eviscerated chunks of jet have been found.
Rescue workers work at the site where a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane crashed in Wuzhou on Thursday
Soldiers stand in formation as they prepare to head to the crashed site of the China Eastern Flight 5735 to search for the black box on Thursday
An aerial view shows scorched land next to an enormous crater at the site of the plane crash in the Guangxi region
Drones were readied for deployment to survey the core area of the crash site and capture images to be assessed by experts, state media said. Other drones that can be airborne for more than 12 hours will be deployed to provide night-time light.
Pumps were also being used to drain a water pond as an off-and-on light rain hampered the search effort for a second straight day. More than 300 searchers were taking part, said Huang Shangwu, a deputy chief in the Guangxi Fire and Rescue Department.
‘The water pumping yesterday greatly contributed to the finding of the black box,’ Huang told reporters at a command center inside a wide restricted zone that has been blocked off by authorities.
Searchers have been using hand tools, metal detectors, drones and sniffer dogs to comb the heavily forested and steep slopes. Wallets, identity and bank cards and human remains have been found.
CCTV news showed police in olive- and dark-coloured rain gear standing in a cleared area on Thursday, some with bare or white-gloved hands atop long-handled tools that appear to be shovels or sickles. They all wore surgical masks.
Recovering the so-called black boxes – they are usually painted orange for visibility – is considered key to figuring out what caused the crash.
Cockpit voice recorders can capture voices, audio alerts and background sounds from the engine or even switches being moved. The flight data recorder stores information about the plane’s airspeed, altitude and direction up or down, as well as pilot actions and the performance of important systems.
Investigators have said it is too early to speculate on the cause. 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 China Eastern flight was headed from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou, a major city and export manufacturing hub on China’s southeastern coast. China Eastern, headquartered in Shanghai, is one of China’s four major airlines.
Shocking CCTV footage emerged on social media supposedly showing the jet racing vertically towards the ground in the moments before the smash
According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, the plane briefly appeared to pull out of its nosedive, before plunging again into a heavily forested slope in the mountainous Guangxi region of southern China.
Chinese authorities said the pilots did not respond to repeated calls from air traffic controllers during the rapid descent. Investigators said the plane stopped transmitting data 96 seconds into the fall.
It is too early to determine the cause of the crash, which experts say are usually the result of a combination of factors.
On Wednesday, video clips posted by China’s state media showed small pieces of the Boeing 737-800 scattered over the crash site. Each piece of debris had a number next to it, the larger ones marked off by police tape.
The crash investigation is being led by China but the United States was invited to take part because the plane was designed and manufactured there.
The plane, flight number MU5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou, got into trouble over the city of Wuzhou, before it plummeted 29,100ft into a mountainside on Monday
Investigators were seen inspecting a black box from the crashed Chinese jet which was found on Wednesday
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday it had not yet determined if investigators would travel to China in light of strict visa and quarantine requirements.
Local media identified the captain of the aircraft as being Yang Hongda, the son of a former airline pilot, who aviation professionals said had an ‘excellent’ safety record.
The first officer was named as Zhang Zhengping, a 58-year-old with 40 years experience and more than 30,000 hours of safe flying, reported the Times.
A rescue official reportedly said the plane had completely disintegrated while a fire sparked by the crash ripped through bamboo and trees before being put out. China Eastern expressed ‘deep condolences’ after confirming the fatalities of 123 passengers and nine crew who were onboard, adding that all the victims were Chinese.
Horrifying CCTV footage emerged on social media supposedly showing the jet racing vertically towards the ground in the moments before the smash.
FlightRadar tracking data showed the aircraft cruising at 29,100ft at 2.20pm. Around two minutes later it had plummeted to just over 9,000ft and 20 seconds after that it had fallen to just 3,225ft. The data indicates a vertical descent of 31,000ft per minute or around 350 mph.
Altitude data also appears to show aircraft regain height at around 7,5000ft before beginning its final descent.
The incident represents China’s deadliest air crash in nearly three decades. The deadliest Chinese commercial flight accident was a China Northwest Airlines crash in 1994, which killed all 160 onboard.
China Eastern is based in Shanghai and is one of China’s three largest carriers with more than 600 planes, including 109 Boeing 737-800s.
Altitude data also appears to show aircraft regain height at around 7,5000ft before beginning its final descent, although commentators have warned the figures could be anomalies
China’s transport ministry said China Eastern has grounded all of its 737-800s, a move that could further disrupt domestic air travel already curtailed because of the largest Covid-19 outbreak in China since the initial peak in early 2020.
The Boeing 737-800 has been flying since 1998 and has a well-established safety record. It is an earlier model than the 737 Max, which was grounded worldwide for nearly two years after deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.
In August 2010, an Embraer ERJ 190-100 operated by Henan Airlines hit the ground short of the runway in the north-eastern city of Yichun and caught fire.
It carried 96 people and 44 of them died. Investigators blamed pilot error.
What are the latest clues in China’s plane crash?
Chinese investigators attempting to determine why a passenger jet with 132 people on board crashed in a remote forested region this week have been faced with challenging conditions.
The search for the black boxes and any survivors – a remote possibility at best – was temporarily suspended Wednesday due to rain on the muddy, charred mountainside.
The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 was flying at 29,000 feet (8,800 meters) on Monday afternoon when it suddenly nosedived into a gap in the mountains outside the southern Chinese city of Wuzhou.
What have rescuers found?
Rescuers with sniffer dogs and drones have found wallets, identity cards and small parts of plane debris. Authorities have given no indication they found survivors, bodies or the plane’s ‘black box’ flight recorders.
Parts of the plane are scattered over a wide area, including the other side of the mountain, state broadcaster CCTV said. The main crash area, now a large barren pit in the forested mountainside, is about half the size of a football field.
Searchers must climb steep inclines as they fan out in the area, which is surrounded on three sides by mountains and accessible by a dirt road.
What are investigators saying?
Investigators have declined to discuss possible reasons for the crash. Zhu Tao, director of the Office of Aviation Safety of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said damage to the aircraft was severe, which makes the investigation ‘very difficult’.
‘We cannot have a clear assessment of the cause of the accident with the information currently available,’ Zhu said at a Tuesday night news conference, the first since the crash.
Authorities are ‘carrying out in-depth investigation’ of the aircraft’s design and maintenance, air traffic control, weather and other issues, he said.
What about the black boxes?
Investigators will make an all-out effort to collect evidence, with a focus on finding the flight recorder, Tao said.
Recovering the so-called black boxes is key to the investigation – they are usually painted orange for visibility, but the longtime name has stuck. One device, called the flight data recorder, captures information about the plane’s airspeed, altitude, direction up or down, pilot actions, and performance of all key systems. The cockpit voice recorder captures sounds including conversations and background engine noise during the flight.
Even with the extent of the damage to the plane, investigators should be able to get a good idea of what happened if the black boxes survived and can be downloaded.
What is known about the plane?
The six-and-a-half-year-old plane’s ‘technical condition was stable’ and met requirements to fly, said Sun Shiying, the chairman of the Yunnan provincial branch of China Eastern Airlines.
The flight had departed the city of Kunming in Yunnan and was headed to Guangzhou in Guangdong province.
The 737-800 has an excellent safety record, said Hassan Shahidi, president of the Flight Safety Foundation. It is from an earlier generation of the 737 series than the Boeing 737 Max jets, which were grounded after crashes in 2018 and 2019. The 737-800 does not have the flight control software that was blamed for the 737 Max crashes.
How has the Chinese government responded?
The central government has sent a team led by Vice Premier Liu He and a senior Cabinet official, State Councilor Wang Yong, to the site to ‘guide rescue work’ and the investigation of the crash.
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