The 132 people on board the Boeing 737-800 which crashed in southern China on Monday are all dead, the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration announced on Saturday (March 26th).
“All 123 passengers and nine crew members of China Eastern flight MU5735 were killed on board on March 21”Civil Aviation Administration Deputy Director General Hu Zhenjiang said, adding: “One hundred and twenty victims could be identified thanks to their DNA. »
Drones, rescuers and thermal cameras had been mobilized to the crash site, near the city of Wuzhou, in Guangxi province. Hopes of finding survivors were dim as the aircraft crashed hard before igniting after impact. The force of the impact had thrown parts of the plane and objects belonging to the passengers over a large area.
A first black box, which recorded the conversations in the cockpit, was found on Wednesday and sent to Beijing for analysis.
The rescuers go through the site with a fine-toothed comb in order to find the second black box, the one which contains the flight data, such as speed, altitude and heading followed.
With these elements, the investigators should be able to determine the causes of the accident, the plane having fallen several thousand meters in a few minutes despite mild weather.