China Plane Crash Update: Black Box Sent for Analysis

A black box from the crashed China Eastern airliner was recovered on Wednesday as investigators try to piece together what made a jet carrying 132 passengers nosedive into a mountainside in southern China.<br /><br />A flight recorder “from China Eastern MU5735 was found,” on Wednesday Liu Lusong, a spokesman for China’s aviation authority, told reporters, although state media later said it was badly damaged.<br /><br />The Boeing 737-800 is equipped with two flight recorders: one in the rear passenger cabin tracking flight data, and the other a cockpit voice recorder.<br /><br />“At present, it is unclear whether it is a data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder,” that has been found, Mao Yanfeng, an official at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said according to state media.<br /><br />The Boeing 737-800 plane went down near Wuzhou in southern China on Monday afternoon after losing contact with air traffic control.<br /><br />The cause of the crash has yet to be determined. Most of the jet appears to have disintegrated upon impact, although some debris and human remains have been found.