BEIJING (Washington Insider Magazine) – Accident investigators from the United States have traveled to China to assist officials in the investigation of a Boeing aircraft disaster that killed 157 people last month.
The crew left for China on Friday, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, to join in the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s investigation into the accident of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800, which killed all 132 persons on board.
The plane’s cockpit audio recorder is now being downloaded and examined at a US facility in Washington as part of that effort, according to government officials.
Investigators are hoping that the tape will reveal why the aircraft nosedived from an altitude of 8,800 meters (29,000 feet) over a hilly region in southern China.
Air traffic authorities were unable to elicit a reaction from the pilots as the aircraft was descending, according to Chinese officials.
The pilots’ microphones and a microphone placed over their heads would take up voices and other noises for the cockpit voice recorder.
The aircraft’s flight-data recorder, which continuously records altitude, speed, direction, and other data as well as the functioning of essential systems on board, was also retrieved, but it was not being analyzed in Washington on Friday.
The NTSB stated its examiners will restrict their contact with persons outside the inquiry so they may go right to work without having to wait for a quarantine period to begin.
The jet that went down was not a Boeing 737 Max, a recent version that was briefly grounded across the world after two deadly tragedies in Ethiopia and Indonesia.
The accident in China generated a 20-meter-deep crater, ignited a forest fire, and crushed the aircraft into small pieces that were strewn across a large region, some of which were buried below. More than 49,000 bits of debris, as well as some human remains and personal objects, have been retrieved, according to ABC NEWS.
A preliminary inquiry report will be finished within 30 days of the March 21 incident, according to a Chinese air safety official.
Flight MU5735 was flying from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou, a significant metropolis and export industrial hub near Hong Kong in southern China, with 123 passengers and 9 crew members.
The 737-800 has a good safety record, and the Chinese aviation sector has experienced few accidents in recent years. Prior to this month’s disaster, the latest deadly Chinese aircraft catastrophe happened in August 2010, when an Embraer ERJ 190-100 controlled by Henan Airlines crashed short of the runway and went up in flames in the northeastern city of Yichun, killing 44 people. Pilot mistake was blamed by investigators.