China plane crash – live: ‘Severely damaged’ black box found from crash site as rain halts rescue operation
China on Wednesday said one of the two black boxes from the China Eastern plane crash was found in severely damaged condition.
Authorities said that the recorder was found so damaged that they were unable to tell whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.
The search and rescue operation was temporarily suspended on Wednesday due to rain. So far no survivors have been found after a plane carrying 132 people crashed in southern China, authorities said on Tuesday night.
“As of now, the rescue has yet to find survivors. The public security department has taken control of the site,” Zhu Tao, director of the Office of Aviation Safety at the Civil Aviation Authority of China, said at a news conference.
A witness described seeing the jet nosedive and hit the ground – while another heard a bang “like thunder”. It is one of the country’s worst air disasters in years.
One woman said six of her family members and friends had been on the flight. They were on the way to a funeral. “I feel very anguished,” she said.
China Eastern Airlines has grounded its entire Boeing 737-800 fleet and President Xi Jinping has ordered an investigation.
Key Points
One black box recovered from crash site
Rain halts rescue operation on Wednesday
China launches safety overhaul of civil aviation
No survivors in the plane crash, says state broadcaster
'Severely damaged’ black box from Boeing 737 found in Guangxi
09:33 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
A search team in China has found one of the two black boxes from the Boeing 737-800 airplane that crashed in Guangxi on Monday.
‘Severely damaged’ black box from crashed China Eastern plane found in Guangxi
Relatives of passengers arrive at Lu village which leads to the crash site
09:05 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
China Eastern plane was travelling near speed of sound: report
08:30 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
The Boeing 737-800, which crashed on Monday with 132 people on board, was reportedly travelling at close to the speed of sound in the mountains.
“The preliminary data indicate it was near the speed of sound,” said John Hansman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology astronautics and aeronautics professor, who reviewed Bloomberg’s calculation of the jet’s speed.“It was coming down steep,” he said.
The aircraft was cutting through the air at over 640 miles per hour and could have exceeded 700 mph.
China Eastern faces tough scrutiny, losses
07:40 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
China Eastern Airlines is staring at deepening losses and tighter regulatory scrutiny following the crash of a Boeing 737-800 flight on Monday. The crash comes at a time when the aviation sector is struggling to find its footing amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The state-owned carrier forecast in January 2021 a loss of 11-13.5 billion yuan ($1.7-$2.1 billion), after 11.8 billion yuan loss the previous year.
The losses are set to deepen after it grounded its entire fleet of 737-800s following the crash and cancelled about 89 per cent of its flights on Tuesday.
“My guess is that in the short term this is going to cause some issues for China Eastern as their maintenance records are reviewed, and there will likely be a short term pullback from Chinese consumers,” Ben Cavender, managing director at China Market Research Group, told Reuters.
India places Boeing 737 aircraft under ‘surveillance’
07:01 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
India has decided to put three airline carriers that have Boeing 737 fleets under “enhanced surveillance” following the plane crash in China.
“Flight safety is serious business and we are closely studying the situation. In the interim, we are focusing on enhanced surveillance of our 737 fleets,” said Arun Kumar, the chief of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in India.
Maroosha Muzaffar reports.
India places Boeing 737 aircraft under ‘surveillance’ after China plane crash
Kin of deceased visit crash site
06:32 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Bereaved relatives of the people onboard the Boeing 737-800 aircraft visited the crash site on Wednesday amid downpour.
Among them was a retiree surnamed Zhang from Shenzhen whose nephew was on the flight. “I hope the country can thoroughly investigate this matter and find out whether it was the manufacturer’s fault or it was a maintenance problem,” Mr Zhang told Reuters.
China Eastern crash a rare disaster for state-run airlines
06:09 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
China, one of the world’s top three air travel markets, has drastically improved safety since a string of deadly crashes in the 1990s and 2000s.
The crash of a China Eastern flight comes after years free of major air disasters. The country has not reported a crash of a commercial flight with more than five fatalities since 2010.
China Eastern is one of the four major state-owned carriers in China. Founded in 1995, the airline has a fleet of 749 aircraft, including 291 from the Boeing 737 series.
China Eastern crash is rare disaster for state-run airlines
Locals provide food and water to rescue team
05:45 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Several locals from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have volunteered to deliver tents, food and other relief supplies to the site by motorcycle to aid the rescue team looking for survivors and the aircraft’s black boxes.
On Tuesday, local villagers drove over 40 kms to bring bottled water and food to the rescue team, Global Times reported.
Local villagers in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region drove more than 40 kms to bring bottled water and food to the rescue team, busy looking for any survivors of the crashed Eastern Airlines #MU5735 Boeing 737-800 plane. #PlaneCrash pic.twitter.com/V6yz9OyOLD
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) March 22, 2022
Drones deployed to gather more evidence
05:14 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
China has deployed drones to search for more evidence in an area of nearly 680,000 square metres around the site of the plane crash.
“The drones’ thermal imaging function will help locate the black boxes,” Zhang Xueliang, one of the rescuers, was quoted by state broadcaster CCTV as saying.
Search for black boxes continue
04:24 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Rescuers are still making an all-out effort to retrieve the black boxes of the passenger plane that crashed in China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous region on Monday afternoon, an official said on Tuesday night.
The severe damage to the plane has made the investigation difficult, said Zhu Tao, head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China safety office.
He added that the investigation team is carrying out a probe in “accordance with the procedures, with rescuers exploring the crash site and going all out to search the black boxes”.
Rain halts rescue operation
03:44 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Rescue operations were temporarily stopped due to rain on Wednesday. According to local media, so far no survivors have been found and the cause of the crash remains unclear.
Rain water was filling the depression in the soft soil caused by the impact of the crash, and there were risks of landslides that could endanger rescue workers scouring the difficult, heavily forested terrain, state television reported.
China Eastern Airlines says it has reached out to the families of all 123 passengers who were onboard when the aircraft crashed on Monday.
China launches safety overhaul of civil aviation
03:33 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
China’s civil aviation regulator on Tuesday directed immediate launch of a two-week-long safety overhaul of the civil aviation sector following the plane crash that killed 132 people onboard.
The safety overhaul covers all regional air-traffic management bureaus, companies involved in civil aviation transport and general aviation, relevant service providers, airport operators, flight training organizations, among others.
Tuesday 22 March 2022 20:05 , Liam James
That’s all from The Independent tonight.
We will bring you more on this tomorrow as we hear it.
Latest pictures from the search
Tuesday 22 March 2022 18:35 , Liam James
The search continues in the hills of Guangxi.
No survivors have been found of the 132 onboard the Boeing 737-800 that crashed yesterday.
Rescue teams are hoping to find the plane’s black box, which could help experts determine the cause of the crash.
CCTV appears to show plane nosedive
Tuesday 22 March 2022 17:40 , Liam James
Sky News and CNN have been showing this footage that appears to show the China Eastern plane nosediving before crashing yesterday.
The footage was captured by a nearby CCTV camera, reports say.
CCTV appears to show the nosediving China Eastern Airlines plane which crashed into a mountainous area near the southeastern city of Wuzhou.
Read more: https://t.co/MnMmQFWpH5 pic.twitter.com/ylhKHSPdNf— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 22, 2022
Crashed plane model had ‘excellent safety record'
Tuesday 22 March 2022 16:48 , Liam James
The Boeing 737-800 aeroplane model had an “excellent safety record” according to the Flight Safety Foundation (FSH).
The plane has been flying since 1998 and Boeing has sold more than 5,100 of them.
It has been involved in 22 major accidents and killed 612 people.
“There are thousands of them around the world. It’s certainly had an excellent safety record,” FSH president Hassan Shahidi said of the 737-800.
What will the investigation look like?
Tuesday 22 March 2022 15:57 , Laurie Churchman
China will lead the investigation into yesterday’s disaster. There will be a representative from the US crash investigator, as well as from Boeing and CFM, the company that made the plane’s engines.
Recovering the jet’s ‘black boxes’ is vital to the investigation.
One device, called the flight data recorder, captures information about the plane’s airspeed, altitude, direction, pilot actions, and performance of all key systems.
The cockpit voice record captures sounds including conversations and background engine noise during the flight.Investigators will look at the maintenance history of the plane, the training and record of the pilots, communication with air traffic control and weather data.
They will examine pieces of the wreckage for clues. The size of the debris field is also important - when wreckage is spread over a very large area, it could indicate that the plane was breaking up before hitting the ground.
Plane’s nosedive baffles experts
Tuesday 22 March 2022 15:37 , Laurie Churchman
The China Eastern plane’s nosedive crash has baffled experts.
John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and a former pilot, said it was “hard to get the airplane to do this”.
Investigators will be looking into the weather the plane encountered, any distress calls, and the possibility of technical failures, according to Bloomberg. Profiles of crew members will also be examined.
Jeff Guzzetti, former accident investigation chief of the US’s Federal Aviation Administration, said the crash was “very odd”.
You can read Maroosha Muzaffar’s full story below.
Crash specialists baffled by Chinese jet's nosedive from 29000ft
Expert says ‘weather, deliberate sabotage, or pilot error’ could be behind crash
Tuesday 22 March 2022 15:14 , Laurie Churchman
The cause yesterday’s plane crash is still not known, according to the authorities in China.
If it’s found, the cockpit voice recorder could provide clues about what happened.
“Accidents that start at cruise altitude are usually caused by weather, deliberate sabotage, or pilot error,” said Dan Elwell, a former head of US regulator the Federal Aviation Administration.
Elwell said mechanical failures in modern commercial jets were rare at cruise altitude.
Crash investigation will be difficult due to severity of damage, official says
Tuesday 22 March 2022 14:45 , Laurie Churchman
Investigations into the China Eastern Airlines crash face a “very high level” of difficulty because the plane was so badly damaged, an official from China’s aviation regulator has said.
Authorities do not yet know what caused the jet to plummet to the ground, according to Zhu Tao, director of aviation safety at the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
The aircraft did not respond to repeated calls from air controllers during its rapid descent, he told reporters at the first government briefing on the disaster.
“Given the information currently available, we still do not have a clear assessment of the cause for the crash,” he said.
India places Boeing 737 aircraft under ‘surveillance’ after China plane crash
Tuesday 22 March 2022 14:00 , Laurie Churchman
India has decided to put three airline carriers that have Boeing 737 fleets under “enhanced surveillance” following the Boeing 737-800 crash in China yesterday.
The Indian carriers include SpiceJet, Vistara and Air India Express.
“Flight safety is serious business and we are closely studying the situation,” said Arun Kumar, the chief of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in India. “In the interim, we are focusing on enhanced surveillance of our 737 fleets.”
Hassan Shahidi, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, said the Boeing 737-800 has been flying since 199 has an excellent 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.
Maroosha Muzaffar has the full story below.
India places Boeing 737 aircraft under ‘surveillance’ after China plane crash
Emergency crews plan to search through night using sniffer dogs
Tuesday 22 March 2022 13:30 , Laurie Churchman
It’s now 9.30pm in China and emergency crews are searching through difficult terrain.
They are planning to work through the night using their hands, picks, sniffer dogs and other equipment to look for survivors, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
A base has been set up near the site of the crash with rescue vehicles, ambulances and an emergency power supply truck.
Passengers ‘avoid flights and seek refunds'
Tuesday 22 March 2022 13:10 , Laurie Churchman
The China Eastern plane crash has shocked a country which has one of the best airline safety records in the world.
Photos of the plane’s wreckage and videos apparently showing its descent have been shared widely online.
Several social media users posted about how it had stoked their fears of flying, and some wrote about changing their travel plans.
One Weibo user, PLILY-L, said she had planned to travel on a later flight on the same route before she heard about the crash.
“I was really scared, I immediately cancelled my flight ticket and switched to taking the high-speed rail,” she wrote.
Local media reported long queues at the counter of China Eastern at Guangzhou Baiyun airport, saying some travellers were seeking ticket refunds following the disaster.
Search likely to continue overnight
Tuesday 22 March 2022 12:46 , Laurie Churchman
It’s now evening in China, and emergency workers are likely to continue their search for victims and flight recorders through the night.
Rescuers are combing a patch of forested mountainside using shovels and torches.
About 600 soldiers, firefighters and police have marched to the crash site, an area of less than half a square mile.
The search for the Boeing 737-800’s recorders, or black boxes, will be carried out in grid-by-grid fashion, according to state television.
Crash specialists baffled by Chinese jet's nosedive from 29000ft
Tuesday 22 March 2022 12:13 , Laurie Churchman
The China Eastern plane crash has confused independent experts, who are at a loss to explain how the aircraft suddenly nosedived to the ground.
The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Kunming to Guangzhou’s International Airport in southern China.
The plane was cruising at around 29,000 feet, about 100 miles from its destination when it plummeted into a mountainside.
The plane was reportedly at a point in its journey when pilots usually prepare for landing.
Maroosha Muzaffar has the full story below.
Crash specialists baffled by Chinese jet's nosedive from 29000ft
Chinese companies say employees were on flight
Tuesday 22 March 2022 11:43 , Laurie Churchman
Two Chinese companies have said their employees were on the China Eastern flight.
Dinglong Culture, a Guangzhou company in both mining and TV and movie production, said its CFO, Fang Fang, was a passenger.
Zhongxinghua, an accounting firm used by Dinglong, said that two of its employees were also on the flight.
Family members have been gathering in waiting areas at the airports in both Guangzhou and Kunming.
Chinese news reports said five hotels with 700 rooms had been requisitioned closer to the crash site for relatives.
China Eastern flight’s last movements
Tuesday 22 March 2022 11:16 , Laurie Churchman
The cause of yesterday’s China Eastern crash is not yet known – but there are details about some of its last movements.
Flight 5735 was travelling at 29,000 feet on Monday afternoon when it began to dive about an hour into its flight, according to flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.com.
The plane plunged to 7,400 feet before regaining about 1,200 feet, then dived again.
It crashed into the side of a mountain in a remote, forested area outside the city of Wuzhou.
State media and Chinese regulators gave no indication the pilot reported trouble or other information that might shed light on the cause of the disaster.
The plane stopped transmitting data 96 seconds after it started to fall.
Rescue workers planned to use drones in the search for the plane’s black boxes, which should contain information from instruments and sound recorded in the cockpit.
Confirming the cause of a plane crash sometimes takes months or years, partly due to the need to gather badly damaged debris.
Other Chinese airlines ‘yet to cancel any flights that use 737-800 aircraft'
Tuesday 22 March 2022 10:57 , Laurie Churchman
China Eastern and two subsidiaries grounded their fleet of 737-800 planes yesterday following the crash.
As of Tuesday, other Chinese airlines had yet to cancel any flights that use 737-800 aircraft, according to data from Chinese aviation data provider Flight Master.
Aviation experts told Chinese media that airlines should avoid suspending all planes of the same model before an investigation into the cause of the crash has been completed, according to reporter William Yang.
Blood donations and medics on standby
Tuesday 22 March 2022 10:36 , Laurie Churchman
Reporter William Yang has more details on the China Eastern plane crash.
The authorities say no survivors have been found – but more than 200 medics are reportedly on standby, and people have been donating blood.
“Even though we know it’s impossible, we still hope the miracle of finding some survivors can happen,” one social media user wrote on Weibo.
You can read the full story below.
Families face anxious wait for news with no sign of survivors from China plane crash
Farm worker describes witnessing plane crash
Tuesday 22 March 2022 10:10 , Laurie Churchman
A farm worker who saw the falling aeroplane says it hit a gap in the mountain where nobody was living.
Chen Weihao said the plane “looked to be in one piece when it nosedived”.
“Within seconds, it crashed,” he told the Xinhua news agency.
It reportedly left a deep pit in the mountainside.
Rescue workers have been making their way through dense vegetation and combing through the charred crash site.
Rescue workers scour crash site
Tuesday 22 March 2022 09:49 , Laurie Churchman
Emergency workers are scouring the site of the plane crash.
Earlier, footage from the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, showed search and rescue workers and paramilitary forces scaling forested hills and placing markers wherever debris was found.
Burnt remains of identity cards and wallets have been recovered, according to state media.
Earlier today, people gathered for a small Buddhist ceremony near the crash site.
Police have set up a checkpoint at Lu village, on the approach to the site, and barred journalists from entering.
‘It was like thunder’: witness describes hearing crash
Tuesday 22 March 2022 09:27 , Laurie Churchman
A witness close to the crash site has described hearing a loud bang as the China Eastern plane plummeted to the ground.
Si, a 64-year-old man who lives in a village near the city of Wuzhou, said “it was like thunder”.
The crash site was hemmed in by mountains on three sides, state media said, with just one small path providing access.
Chinese media carried dashcam footage apparently showing a jet diving to the ground. The footage has not been independently verified.
North Korea offers condolences to China over plane crash
Tuesday 22 March 2022 08:59 , Laurie Churchman
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping to offer condolences over the China Eastern plane crash, state media KCNA said.
In a message sent on Monday, he expressed “deep sympathy and condolences” to Xi, victims and their bereaved families, the official news agency said.
“He sincerely hoped that the Chinese people would eradicate the after-effects of the accident as early as possible and the bereaved family members would overcome sorrow and lead a stabilised life,” it said.
China Eastern crash is ‘rare disaster for state-run airlines'
Tuesday 22 March 2022 08:36 , Laurie Churchman
Along with North America and Europe, China is one of the world’s top three air travel markets. It has dramatically improved safety since a string of deadly crashes in the 1990s and 2000s.
The China Eastern tragedy on Monday comes after years free of major air disasters.
The last crash of a commercial jetliner in mainland China was in 2010, where 44 of the 96 passengers on board an Embraer E-190 regional jet were killed.
It crashed while approaching to Yichun airport in low visibility.
You can read the full story below.
China Eastern crash is rare disaster for state-run airlines
‘His mother couldn’t believe this had happened'
Tuesday 22 March 2022 08:07 , Laurie Churchman
Worried relatives have gathered at Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou, waiting for updates.
One man at the airport told Reuters news agency he was the colleague of a passenger named Mr Tan.
After confirming that he was on the plane, he had to break the news to Mr Tan’s family.
“They were sobbing. His mother couldn’t believe this had happened,” he said.
“She said she will be here as soon as possible. Because she was very sad, her boy was only 29 years old.”
India puts three flight carriers on ‘enhanced surveillance’
Tuesday 22 March 2022 07:20 , Maroosha Muzaffar
India has decided to put Boeing 737 fleets of Indian carriers on “enhanced surveillance” after the China Eastern Airlines plane crash.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) announced on Tuesday that SpiceJet, Vistara and Air India Express, which have Boeing 737 in their fleets, shall be put on an “enhanced surveillance” in the wake of the devastating crash that is believed to have left all 132 people onboard dead.
“Flight safety is serious business and we are closely studying the situation,” DGCA chief Arun Kumar said, according to Indian news agencies.
Mass flight cancellations in China after crash
Tuesday 22 March 2022 06:57 , Maroosha Muzaffar
About 74 per cent of the 11,800 flights scheduled in China have been canceled on Tuesday, a day after a plane crashed on a mountainside in southern China.
According to VariFlight, a global flight data services company, even some of the busiest domestic flight routes — from Beijing and Shanghai — have been affected by this.
The cancellations come after a Boeing 737-800 plane operated by China Eastern Airlines nosedived in a crash that is believed to have killed all 132 people onboard.
Meanwhile, Flight Master, the Chinese aviation data provider, reported that other Chinese airlines that use the Boeing 737-800 are yet to cancel any of their flights as of Tuesday.
Latest crash threatens Boeing's place in Chinese aviation sector
Tuesday 22 March 2022 06:40 , Maroosha Muzaffar
The deadly crash of the Boeing 737-800 in southern China, which is believed to have killed all 132 people onboard, comes as a major setback for the aircraft maker’s efforts in China, renewing concerns about its planes’ safety.
On Monday, the China Eastern Airlines flight plummeted 30,000 ft in two minutes near the city of Wuzhou, in Teng county, in the province of Guangxi region.
It brings back the spotlight on Boeing, which has had a turbulent few years after two of its 737 Max jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.
The 737 Max crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia led to the grounding of the fleet for about 20 months.
The Boeing 737-800 that crashed on Monday does not have the equipment that led to the 737 Max disasters.
However, according to data from the Aviation Safety Network, since its launch, 737-800s have been involved in 22 hull-loss accidents that resulted in 612 fatalities.
“What we know is that the crash happened during the cruise phase of the flight, which is comparatively rare even though this phase accounts for the majority of flight time,” Oleksandra Molloy, aviation safety expert at the University of New South Wales told Al Jazeera.
He noted that only 13 per cent of fatal commercial accidents globally between 2011 and 2020 occurred during the cruise phase. “Usually, the autopilot is engaged during this phase.”
Additional rescue teams dispatched to site of crash
Tuesday 22 March 2022 05:57 , Maroosha Muzaffar
On Tuesday, additional teams of rescuers and medical experts arrived at site of the crash in Guangxi region, CGTN reported.
Hundreds of volunteers from neighbouring Yunnan and Guangdong are also reportedly on their way to join the rescue efforts.
A team of rescuers from Wuzhou was the first to reach the site and extinguish the fire caused due to the crash on Monday.
At 2.38pm on Monday local time, a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 plane carrying 132 people crashed in a mountainous region near Molang village in south China’s Wuzhou city.
No survivors have been found so far, nearly 24 hours since the crash.
The search for the airplane’s black box is still underway.
Rescue and search operations continue on Tuesday at the site of crash
Tuesday 22 March 2022 05:39 , Maroosha Muzaffar
Rescue operations in China are underway at the site of the crash on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
State broadcaster CCTV said earlier in the day that no survivors have been found so far.On Monday, a China Eastern Airlines plane with 132 people on board crashed in the mountainous region near the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region. All those on board the plane are believed to have been Chinese.
Rescue teams continue to scour the slopes of the mountain in hopes of finding the black box and other parts of the plane that could help experts determine the exact cause of the crash.
On Monday, after the crash, debris from the plane was found strewn all over with belongings of passengers covering the ground.
State media reported that burnt remains of identity cards and wallets were also found at the site.
The flight MU5735 was en route from Kunming, capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, to the port city of Guangzhou, when it suddenly nose-dived to the ground.
