Search and rescue workers search through debris at the China Eastern flight crash site in Tengxian County
Highlights
- The preliminary investigation had not found any indication of a technical malfunction on the plane
- The focus is now on the actions of the crew which was present inside the cockpit
- Both the black boxes were analysed by US experts at a government lab in Washington
Months after the horrific China Eastern Airlines jet crash, fight data from a black box has revealed shocking details about the accident. According to several media reports, the black box data has indicated an intentional crash by someone in the cockpit. People familiar with the US officials' preliminary assessment said someone with the cockpit input controls intentionally directed the plane to its descent.
The preliminary investigation had not found any indication of a technical malfunction on the plane and the focus is now on the actions of the crew which was present inside the cockpit, The Wall Street Journal quoted an official as saying.
A total of 132 people were killed in the passenger plane crash that was reported in southern China in March this year.
Flight MU5735 with 123 passengers and nine crew members was headed from the city of Kunming in southwestern China to Guangzhou, a provincial capital and export manufacturing hub near Hong Kong in the southeast.
Both the black boxes were analysed by US experts at a government lab in Washington.
Both may have been damaged by the impact of the crash. If the information on them can be recovered, it could shed light on why the China Eastern Boeing 737-800 went into a sudden nosedive and slammed into the ground in a mountainous area on March 21.
The crash left a 20-meter- (65-foot-) deep crater in a mountainside, shattered the plane and set off a fire in the surrounding forest.
More than 49,000 pieces of plane debris were found. It took two days to find the cockpit voice recorder and six days for the flight data recorder, which was buried 1.5 meters (5 feet) underground.
US accident investigators had earlier arrived in China to assist the investigation by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
