Chinese emergency workers have found one of two black boxes from a China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed this week with 132 people onboard.
What is believed to be the cockpit voice recorder appeared to have survived the impact, a Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) official said on Wednesday.
Flight MU5735 was en route from the southwestern city of Kunming to Guangzhou on Monday when the Boeing 737-800 suddenly nosedived to the ground and burst into a fireball.
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According to flight data, the jet had been in the air for more than an hour and was nearing its destination when it suddenly dropped from an altitude of 29,100ft (8800m) to 9075ft (2766m) in just two minutes and 15 seconds.
The plane regained about 360m, then dived again. It crashed into the side of a mountain in a remote, forested area outside the city of Wuzhou.
The cause of the crash has yet to be determined and the search for the second black box continues.
Most of the plane appears to have disintegrated upon impact although some debris and human remains have been found.
“An initial inspection showed that the exterior of the recorder has been severely damaged but the storage units, while also damaged to some extent, are relatively complete,” CAAC official Zhu Tao said.
The black box is being sent to an institute in Beijing for decoding.
Investigators are looking at several possible causes of the crash - including deliberate action, pilot error, or technical issues such as a structural failure or mid-air collision.
Australian aviation editor Geoffrey Thomas told Sunrise the way the aircraft nosedived vertically was “very unusual”.
“Whatever happened it was catastrophic and very sudden but there’s no indication of exactly what caused the crash,” Mr Thomas said.
“There are some suggestions that the tail came away, there’s also suggestion of a possible bomb and also human factors related to the pilot”
China Eastern said the crashed plane, which was nearly seven years old, had met all airworthiness requirements pre-flight.
All three pilots - one more than normally required on a 737-800 - are said to have been in good health.
Weather along the flight path on Monday did not pose any danger to the aircraft and air controllers had communication with it after take-off and prior to its rapid descent
The captain, hired in January 2018, had 6709 hours flying experience while the first and second officers had 31,769 hours and 556 hours respectively, a China Eastern official said.
“From what we know, the performance of the three pilots had been good and their family life relatively harmonious,” the official said.
One co-pilot was an observer to build up experience.
China Eastern has tightened precautions after the crash, requiring two senior captains and a senior co-pilot on a three-person crew on some aircraft types.
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