The rain interrupted Wednesday the search for hypothetical survivors and black boxes of the Boeing 737-800 which crashed two days earlier in China with 132 people on board, after a still unexplained fall.
China Eastern Airlines domestic flight MU5735 broke up on a wooded hill in southern Wuzhou on Monday as it traveled between the cities of Kunming (southwest) and Guangzhou (south).
Hundreds of firefighters, soldiers, doctors, volunteers and local politicians are mobilized to find traces of the passengers, their personal effects and the black boxes, which have not yet been located.
A civil aviation official (CAAC) said on Tuesday night that no survivors had been found so far. Hopes are low, however, as the device crashed virtually vertically before catching fire.
The search was halted on Wednesday due to heavy rainfall that waterlogged the disaster site, making it muddy and dangerous for rescuers.
“Small landslides could occur,” said a reporter for public television CCTV, who said he still smelled “a smell of kerosene” at the scene, two days after the disaster.
“There is a huge pit at the point of impact of the plane. The water has accumulated there (…) and drainage works will certainly be necessary”, he underlined.
The possible confirmation of the death of the 123 passengers and nine crew members would make it the worst plane crash since 1994 in China, where aviation safety is considered very good by experts.
According to the CAAC, all the people on board were of Chinese nationality.
In the absence of a black box, the reasons for the tragedy remain unknown.
According to data from the specialized site Flightradar, the plane suddenly dived towards the ground before crashing. A behavior considered unusual by the experts.
“When the air traffic controller noticed the plane’s sharp drop in altitude, he immediately contacted the crew, several times, but got no response,” Zhu Tao, the director, said on Tuesday. aviation safety at the CAAC.
The device was not old: in service in China since 2015, it had already performed nearly 9,000 flights in more than 18,000 hours, he said. According to China Eastern, it had met all airworthiness requirements.
The CAAC has nevertheless ordered a general inspection in the air sector during the next two weeks.
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