The cockpit voice recorder from the China Eastern Airlines 737-800 airliner that crashed on March 21 has arrived at National Transportation Board laboratories in Washington, D.C. for downloading by U.S. investigators, the NTSB confirmed with AIN on Monday.
Search crews found the heavily damaged voice recorder two days after the crash, which killed all 132 people on board. On March 27 firefighters found the flight data recorder, which Chinese officials said also suffered significant exterior damage. However, an official with the Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC) said that the internal workings of the CVR escaped relatively unscathed, according to Chinese state-controlled media.
In an April 1 Twitter post, the NTSB confirmed it had sent a team of its investigators to China, along with Boeing representatives, to assist in the probe. The board added that investigators will limit interactions with those not involved in the investigation in a manner similar to safety protocols at the Beijing Olympics, allowing them to begin work immediately without quarantine.
The Boeing 737-800 has departed Kunming in southwestern China to Guangzhou but lost contact over the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. Surveillance footage showed the jet in a nearly direct nosedive into terrain. According to data from flight tracking site FlightRadar24, MU5735 began to quickly lose altitude while cruising at 29,100 feet and descended to about 9,000 feet in just over two minutes. FlightRadar24’s last altitude indication shows the airplane at 3,225 feet.
The CAAC on March 30 said it had begun a two-week inspection campaign across the Chinese aviation industry under orders from President Xi Jinping and central government leaders. The inspection aims to further strengthen awareness of what the CAAC called “bottom lines” and “to troubleshoot safety hazards in the civil aviation field to guarantee higher-level safety of aviation operations and people’s lives.”
The inspection covers regional air traffic management bureaus, airlines, service provider companies, airport companies, and flight training institutions and focuses on safety awareness, the building of professional teams, implementation of rules and standards, safety management chains, safety support capabilities, and fulfillment of safety responsibilities.