An aviation official said Wednesday that the black box recorder from the China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed this week was found extensively damaged at the crash site in southern China.
According to Zhu Tao, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China's aviation safety office, the black box is most likely the cockpit voice recorder, while the search for the other continues.
The box was sent overnight to a Beijing-based professional civil aviation agency for data processing, according to Zhu, who emphasized that the process might take time. Although the exterior of the box was substantially damaged, the storage unit appears to be rather intact.
The black boxes on an airplane are two pieces of technological equipment: one that records flight data and the other that records cockpit discussions with air traffic controllers. The analysis of that data could identify the causes of the crash.
Authorities are hoping that the flight recorders will reveal why the plane crashed into the mountainous countryside of Guangxi province an hour after takeoff with 132 people on board. This is China's worst air disaster in a decade.
The two black boxes on the crashed Boeing 737 were made by Honeywell, according to a news account from China's civil aviation authorities, citing a press conference on Wednesday.
There have been no reports of any of the 123 passengers or nine crew members on board.
Despite their name, "black box" instruments are brightly colored to aid with crash recovery. The plane's airspeed, altitude, system performance, and direction are all recorded by the flight data recorder box. The cockpit recorder records pilot discussion as well as possible plane noise.
Officials indicated during the press conference that the weather was normal throughout the flight, that the plane's maintenance record was clear, and that the crew talked with air traffic controllers before the plane's abrupt drop. Officials claimed the crew members were all fit and trained pilots.
According to the state-owned China Daily, heavy rain halted search attempts early Wednesday. More than 600 firefighters and other officials were dispatched to the crash scene to assist in the hunt for the second recorder, which was found in damp and muddy conditions.
The Boeing 737-800 took flight at 1:11 p.m. local time Monday from Kunming in Yunnan's southwestern state of Yunnan towards Guangzhou, a big metropolis in Guangdong province northwest of Hong Kong. The aircraft was due to arrive at 3:05 p.m., but air traffic controllers lost track of it at 2:15 p.m.
